CLASSROOMS
East prepares for increased class
sizes next school year ErinReilly

Q&A with Superintendent
Gene Johnson

pg.p.22

“It’s dismal.”
This is English teacher Debe Bramley’s prognosis for her workload next
year due to this year’s drastic budget
cuts. At least nine teachers from East
are being reassigned throughout the
district, and some may still be in danger of losing their jobs. This means
that next year, students will be spread
over a selection of fewer teachers,
with core classes containing numbers
as high as 35 to 40 students, according to principal Karl Krawitz. This will

be a serious problem, with teachers
already having to cut down lessons
because of the restrictions of block
scheduling and relatively high class
sizes, according to Bramley and math
teacher Christopher Burrows.
Like most other teachers at East,
freshman English teacher Debe Bramley has five classes with an average
of 25 students per class. She spends
around three hours of her own time
before and after school grading papers and planning the next day’s les-

son. When grading major projects,
however, she figures that she can
grade about four projects an hour.
With approximately 125 students, it
would take Bramley about 31 hours
and 15 minutes to finish grading just
one of the ten projects she assigns
each year.
And she hates to consider what
her work load will be like next year,
when it’s predicted that at least 50
new students will be added in to that
equation. continued on page 5

I didn’t cause this economic problem, I’m just trying to help fix it.”

Superintendent Gene Johnson, p. 3

NEWS
02 04-04-11
EvanNichols

Q: You’ve been in SMSD since 1986. When did
you start noticing problems in the district?
A: The big problem came in 1992 when the
school finance formula changed. School finances are a very complicated issue. The responsibility for funding school moved from
the local level to the state level. When that
occurred, the left Shawnee Mission in a situation where we were not able to “control our
destiny” like we had been doing in the past
financially. The state did recognize that there
some issues with the formula, so they allowed Local Option Budget (LOB).
We’ve had some financial issues over time.
In 2002, we had to cut our budget, not like
this though. Three years ago is when this economic downturn really hit us hard--we have
cut $20 million out of our budget in the last
two years. We’re going to have to do another
major cut again. That’s pretty tough for the
district.
Q: What’s it like to be a leader during the “tough
times?”
A: You have to be in the right frame of mind
to do it. You have to understand that these
are very tough times for lots of people. Sometimes people get very angry, and say things or
write things to you. But I have to look at the
entire district, because I represent 28,000 kids
in the district, and if I propose something to
the board, and the board and I are together on
what we think we need to do, it’s because we
believe that’s the right thing to do.
The other thing is, personally, I didn’t cause
this economic problem; I’m just trying to
help fix it. I’m sure you’ve done things in
your life there had to be some pain in order
to get better. If you’re a cross country runner,
there’s pain involved in getting better. My
dad used to drop me off 18 miles from home
and I’d run home. But there’s a pay off for that,
and the pay off is success. There’s been a lot
of pain this fall. People feel so strongly about
their school, and that’s a good thing. People
didn’t want to move from Brookwood to the
South area. But, when Brookwood moved to
the South area to the East area, people didn’t
want to do it either. We’re trying to run a
school district that’s the most efficient as we
can. We’re trying to have the most money for
the kids and for the teachers. Why should we
be operating buildings that aren’t full or completely full, and some people say, ‘we really
like these small schools.’ Well, if you go from
a middle school of 400, and the next year
you’re in Shawnee Mission East and there’s
1800-1900 students, you get along fine. You
get along fine if you’re in a small school; you
get along fine if you’re in a large school.
Q: There has been $20 million in budget cuts
the past two years. Can you explain the overall
approach to budget cuts, and why you chose the
areas you cut?
A: We look at our General Fund Budget,
which is different from our capital budget,
and we look line by line, ‘where have we
been spending our money?’ We have our
executive cabinet, and we have two people
from our budget department, and we go line
by line, talking about how we can get along
with less of this, less of that. But this issue
is this: 85 percent of general fund budget

A question and answer
session with the district’s
superintendent, Gene
Johnson uncovers

JUST THE FACTS

goes to pay people. So once you start slashing, pretty soon that means [you’re slashing
people]. We’ve tried to keep cuts away from
the teachers, the people that are closest to the
kids. Last year we had a reduction-in-force,
which meant teachers lost their jobs. This
year, we’re still determining whether or not
we’re going to have to do that. But things are
not looking good.
Last year, we had five different budget hearings at different high schools, but this year
we decided to do this [district budget survey].
We wanted as many people to weigh in on
our proposed reductions as possible. We
had a list [of budget cuts] that amount up
to about $11.4 million, and we’re not going
to need that many, but we wanted people to
rank those [cuts]. As of [March 23] we had
8,158 respond to the survey. We have 400
pages of comments. It’s interesting; unless
you work with these numbers and dollars on
a regular basis--it’s hard for people to understand millions and millions of dollars. People
might say, ‘Why don’t you sell candy to make
money?’ Well sure, you can sell candy to
make some money, but it’s not that much.
We’re looking at millions, not hundreds.
Q: How do you respond to community members
saying that your administration hasn’t been very
innovative or creative when dealing with these
budget cuts?
A: I’m not sure exactly what they mean.
Money’s money. We’re talking money in millions here, not in hundreds or thousands. To
say that [SMSD] hasn’t been creative, I’m not
sure what that really means. I understand
this, because so many people don’t have
a clear understanding of how our budget
works. We’ve lost $20 million, and we’re going to lose another $10 million; we’ve been
creative as we can to keep cuts away from
the classroom. Next year we’re proposing
that every classroom isn’t cleaned every day,
instead [being cleaned] every third day. It all
boils down to people. In the end, you’ve got
less people than you do before because 85
percent of your budget goes to people.
EN: And you can’t just cut that 15 percent.
GJ: No, because that’s programs. That’s journalism. That’s athletics. That’s math. I’m not
going to expect you to do your work on a

manual typewriter. If you’re going to go to
a journalism convention--that’s how you
learn. I don’t want to say you can’t do any
cross country meets outside of the school
district because we don’t have any money. I
think we’ve been pretty creative actually. But
people have different opinions, I understand
that.
People say, ‘You could really save a lot of money on energy.’ In the district, we spend about
$8 million a year on utilities. So, if we cut
that in half, we saved $4 million. Well, can
you really cut your utilities by 50 percent?
Most likely not. But, we have been working really hard on that, and we are going to
budget half a million less next year than we
did previously, because we have saved a lot
of money by watching our use of electricity
and water and gas.
EN: So you do try to use [community input] to a
certain extent, but they’re looking at it as a “this
will save everything” issue.
GJ: Yeah. Since 1974, including the three
schools we closed for next year, we’ve closed
27 schools in the district. In they heyday of
Shawnee Mission, when they’re were almost
46,000 students in the early ‘70s, there were
like 55 elementary schools. Now there’s going to be 34, then 33.
Q: Do you think there’s going to be future bond
issues with SMSD schools?
A: I think so. It won’t be a couple of years, we
need to work our way out of this economic
downturn. We’re going to begin during work
on our middle schools next fall, and we can
do that with existing money that we have.
Well, there’s still some things that our going
to have to occur in the district-there’s still
some elementary schools that might need to
be replaced, there’s some schools that need
to be consolidated because of enrollment
declines. When you have 60 buildings in the
district, 5.2 million feet of floor space, it’s an
ongoing effort to keep everything updated.
Q: Some community members have been concerned that SMSD is losing its prestige and might
not be as reputable of a district as it has been in
the past years. How would you respond to those
concerns?
A: That is so far from the truth. Our students
are outstanding. Last year, we had $40 mil-

lion of scholarships awarded to our seniors.
We have IB, Pre-Law, BioTech, two medical
programs at North, we have a nationallyrenowned culinary arts program. Plus, our
students overall are achieving. Now the difference between 25 years ago, or maybe even
10 years ago--the flavor of our district is different, as far as the type of students we have.
Diversity. I would say in 3-4 years, one out of
every five students in our entire district will
be Hispanic. Right now its about 15-16 percent.
Q: Dr. Krawitz has said that next year is going
to be the “day of reckoning,” or one of the toughest years for the district. Do you agree with that?
How do you plan on maintaining a high standard
of education with the financial woes possibly getting worse?
A: I think Dr. Krawitz is right. I know that
next year is going to be a tough financial year
for us. But it doesn’t meant that we’re going
down the tubes in any way shape or form.
We’re all going to have to tighten our belts,
toughen up. Just as an example, we have a
proposal on the table to pay to participate
[in athletics]. That’s a way we could generate
money, because people have said to us, ‘We’re
willing to pay.’ Pay to participate is one way
to do it.
EN: And you’re considering other options like
that?
GJ: Absolutely. Those are things we can do
to raise some money that can be somewhat
significant. If somebody couldn’t pay, we
could find some funding for them someway.
We have people who are willing to help others out. It’s kind of like SHARE at East--they
come to rescue to all different sorts of causes.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to say
about the current financial situation or the future
of SMSD?
A: When you go through tough times, you’re
trying to figure out ways to be successful. You
can’t cry the blues and go ‘Oh gee, it’s all over.
I guess we should just fold our tent and wait
for the worst to happen.’ That’s not what
we’re doing. We’re trying to find out ways to
make it work. I’ll give you an example that
hits East. Swimming. The boys’ state swimming team couldn’t stay in Topeka overnight
because we didn’t have the funding. Now, is it
OK to drive back from Topeka and then drive
back the next day? Yeah. Would it have been
nice to stay overnight? Yeah. But, we couldn’t
do it. In the end, people went, ‘Hey, we’re going to be fine.’ Those are the things we have
to do.
EN: The stuff that you just have to grin and bear
it?
GJ: Yeah. And if you want to do something
extra special, I know that cross country team
goes to Chicago. Sometimes you have to dig
the money up.

For a full recording and
more photos of the interview
visit smeharbinger.net

NEWS
04 04-04-11

ORT

T REP
E
G
D
U
B
L
ECIA

H
G
U
O
N
E
G
I
B
N'T
US

A SP

AI

F
O
O
W
T
E
H
T
OR

F

$
T

T H E BU G E
D

Hot press
WHERE WERE teachers react to
budgetary cuts

\THE
REductions?

Staff Development

1 FTE
Human resources

1 FTE
Resource Specialist

1 FTE
Print Shop

1 FTE

Purchasing

1 FTE
information specialist
Manager

1 FTE

Operations and
management

15 FTE
information services

3.5 fte

=
FTE=Full
Time
EQuivalent

Position
total savings

$1,244,425

for the 2011-12 school year
logan heley

For three weeks this past month, the district conducted a 21-question online survey
that asked district employees, students and
patrons their opinions on a number of budget cut possibilities. Among the options were
cutting teachers, special education and custodial staff, supplies budgets, coaches, librarians
and music programs. At last Monday’s Board
of Education meeting, Superintendent Gene
Johnson presented the results of that survey to
the board and public.
Over 3,500 comments were written by the
8,564 individuals that took the survey, all of
which have been published on the district’s
website, www.smsd.org. Parents made up the
largest percentage of participants, 42 percent,
while students were the smallest demographic at 11 percent.
The survey, named “The Budget Reduction
Survey,” said the district needed to make $1010.5 million in cuts to balance its budget for
next year. Final budget reduction proposals
will be presented by Dr. Johnson to the board
at the April 11 Board of Education meeting
with the board taking action on the proposals on August 8. When asked, Spanish teacher
and East Kansas National Education Association (KNEA) representative Linda Sieck characterized the district’s finances as “bleak” and
was concerned about coming years when the
district might not have reserve funds to fall
back on.
“It’s especially scary because we don’t know
what the Legislature is going to do,” Sieck said,
“if their action is going to keep things at the
status quo or even make them worse, and so,
right now, everyone is in a ‘prepare for the
worst’ mode.”
One of the most drastic moves has already
happened––nine East teachers, about eight
percent of the faculty, have been put on excess,
meaning they aren’t guaranteed a job with the
district next year. Sieck believes the classroom
will be affected by those cuts, and that teachers will be required to teach larger classes and

more of them.
“Teachers will do the best job possible, but
there are only so many hours in the day, only
so much you can do even if you are a true professional and you are dedicated, you do need
to sleep and eat and have fun every once in a
while,” Sieck said.
Junior Kellyn Harrison said she took the
survey because her music teachers at East
asked her to. While Harrison is currently enrolled in Symphonic Band, Choraliers and
Chambers singers, it was potential custodial
cuts that she found “really interesting.” The
survey suggested a cut that would eliminate
21.25 custodial positions district-wide. According to the survey, the plan would be to
have teams of three custodians circulate the
district to provide “deep cleaning“ at buildings
every three days.
“I can’t even imagine our school building
being cleaned every three days when it’s being
cleaned every day now,” Harrison said.
The survey also asked participants how
they felt about a freeze on the purchase of
new books and the elimination of secondary
librarians. A library aide, according to the survey, would replace librarians at district middle
schools and high schools. About 38 percent
agreed with cutting librarians, and just below
43 percent agreed with freezing book purchases. According to East librarian Chris Larson, librarians are required to have a masters
in either Educational Technology or Library
Sciences. Larson wasn’t sure if aides would be
qualified to do more than tasks such as checking out library books. She said she kept the
statement “I know we need to cut to the bone,
but not to the heart” in mind as she filled out
the survey herself. Last year, one librarian was
cut from each high school, leaving Larson as
East’s only librarian.
Junior Spencer Davis believes cutting the
supplies budget is the district’s best option.
Davis has talked about supplies cuts with IB
history teacher John Nickels, and thinks that
more handouts could be put on a teacher’s
Web Back Pack leaving the burden of printing
the handout to the student.
While Davis is supportive of cutting supplies budgets, he opposes the district’s effort
to eliminate three supplemental pay positions
for co-curricular and extra-curricular programs at each of the five high schools. Davis
feels that could put activities such as drama at
their breaking point.

“Cutting the extra coaches and extra drama
teachers and music teachers would kind of almost end those programs in that sense, and I
thought it [would be] an unacceptable cut to
make,” Davis said.
Dr. Johnson identified several suggestions
that he said recurred frequently in the comments section of the survey. Reducing employee pay, namely a reduction in administrative pay and benefits, increasing certain fees,
closing a high school, consolidating district
offices and pursuing district fundraisers and
corporate sponsorships were some of the suggestions Dr. Johnson listed. Dr. Johnson also
said participants had a concern for the arts and
higher class sizes. He said implementing energy saving methods and looking into reducing program budgets rather than eliminating
them also frequently came up in comments.
In the public forum portion of last Monday’s board meeting six parents spoke out
against cutting Parents as Teachers, a program
that works with parents during the early years
of their children’s lives, from conception to
kindergarten. Sieck believes the Shawnee Mission community isn’t willing to let programs
get cut and class sizes to become larger. She
feels that state legislators think schools can
get by with bare-bone budgets and not have it
affect the quality of education being provided.
That just isn’t the case, she said.
“I think that message needs to get to legislators,” Sieck said. “They need to hear it from
the general public that ‘You know what? This
is Kansas. One of the things we’re most proud
of about Kansas is we have some of the best
schools in the country and we want [our legislators] to maintain them. We’re not willing to
sacrifice our schools for the sake of tax cuts.’”
As district administrators work on their
final budget cut proposals, which will be announced at the April 11 Board of Education
meeting, Sieck wants them to take teacher and
administrator cuts hand-in-hand.
“I think if you are looking at cutting teaching staff, you need to look at cutting administrative staff,” Sieck said. “If you’re talking
about freezing teachers’ salaries, then you
need to freeze administrators’ salaries. That
didn’t happen last year––not in all cases.”
But, in the end, Sieck wants all district budget reduction options on the table.
“Everything needs to be out there,” Sieck
said. “There can’t be any sacred cows when you
have this kind of pressure.”

NEWS

issue 13

STAFF

05

SMSD

SMSD

KatBuchanan

Comparing debe Bramley ‘s

classroom

WANTED
A decision that will

benefi t
current and projected equally
teachers and students

the work load
2010-11

2011-2012

TOtal time for projects

312.5
hours

437.5
hours

grading projects// papers

31.15
hours

43.45
hours

Daily Grading/Planning

3.00
hours

4.20
hours

2010-11

25 students

35 students

2011-2012

Regarding
class sizes
...continued from page 1

Bramley feels that the English department
will be affected the most by this decision, since
this department focuses its grading specifically on papers and projects, not quick and easy
Scantron tests. She also feels that it is already
hard to cover all the material with 25 students.
“It used to be that each English teacher
could only have a maximum of 120 students
because of the intensity of the workload, but
that rule’s been pushed by the wayside with
the recent budget cuts,” Bramley said. “There
used to be a lot more papers assigned across
the board, but with block schedules cutting
out teaching time I think most teachers have
just stuck to Scantrons.”
Keeping control of a class of such large
numbers is also a potential problem facing the
teachers. Bramley feels that because of this,
group work may be nearly impossible to accomplish.
Geometry, Algebra and Pre-Calculus teacher Burrows’ biggest concern is that there will
be less time for each student to ask questions
during class and before and after school. This
problem would especially pertain to Burrows,
since at least twenty students clamor around
his desk every morning with questions regarding the previous day’s lesson.
A collective concern coming from Bramley,
Burrows and Stallard is where to put additional desks to accommodate the new number of
students. Bramley’s room is presently bursting
with 30 student desks, her desk, and a podium.
Already teaching while wedged between her
podium and the whiteboard, she said that it
would be almost like a puzzle to fit another
row of desks into the cramped room.

One of the biggest problems with these
new class sizes, according to Spanish teacher
Linda Sieck, is that it’s harder to participate in
class, participation being one of the key grading points and teaching strategies for foreign
language classes. She also fears losing personal connections with her students, which is
one of the fundamental reasons she became a
teacher.
“Anytime your class is larger you can’t interact with individual students,” Sieck said.
“The more voices there are, the harder it is to
be heard.”
Bramley agrees, wanting to maintain her
relationships with the students individually
and her class as a whole.
“Your class is like your family, and in a big
family, someone is going to get left out,” Bramley said. “I worry more about that than the
workload.”

John Stonner ‘ s

view
on the situation
Q. Do you have concern about class
sizes next year?

A. The concern of the business depart-

ment is that we have so many different
classes, and next year we’ll be going
from having maybe five classes to six
classes. So we’re going to have more
preps. Combine that with seven period
days next year, we could be going to different preps in different classrooms.

06 NEWS
04-04-11

A threat to planning

The House of Representatives proposed to make budget cuts towards Planned Parenthood
SammiKelly

AnnaBernard

Sitting as one of the youngest speakers at
a Town Hall meeting on sex education, sophomore Eden McKissick-Hawley watched as
a man stood up for the question-and-answer
portion of the meeting.
“I’m a teacher at an inner-city school,” he
started, addressing the panel, “We’ve had 14
pregnant girls this month, but I still believe
in abstinence-only education.”
Eden looked him straight in the eye.
“Well, do you think that maybe it’s not
working?”
The recently proposed Pence Amendment has brought debate like this back to the
forefront. The amendment, which passed in
February by the U.S. House of Representative,
would eliminate the Title X family planning
program, which provides federal funds to the
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
and over 100 other affiliated organizations.
Title X is currently funded at $317 million.
The amendment was voted down by the Senate this month, but a similar bill is currently
in the House committee.
Planned Parenthood is a health care provider that supplies birth control, sexual and
body-image education and cancer and sexually transmitted disease (STD) screenings.
Its most controversial service is abortion,
though, according to its website, abortions
account for just three percent of its total services. The new bill would cut federal funding from any organization that provides
abortions. Federal funds are currently given
to Planned Parenthood for all its services besides abortions.
According to a Planned Parenthood press
release, the Pence amendment would have
cut “48 percent of Planned Parenthood patients — approximately 1.4 million people
— from their source of health care.”
When she learned of the proposal, Eden
was “disgusted.” A long-time advocate for
comprehensive sexual education as opposed
to abstinence-only education, Eden strongly
opposed the House decision.
“I think that [legislators] have let students
and the youth down,” Eden said. “This to me
is a huge issue that directly affects every boy
and girl in the state of Kansas. When kids

cannot get STD screenings, cancer screenings, access to birth control, access to pregnancy tests, where are they going to turn to?”
Eden believes that a holistic approach to
sexual education is the best approach to increasing teenager’s sexual health. Citing statistics such as one-in-four girls have an STD,
Eden feels that abstinence-only education
actually increases teenage sex.
“As sex-ed goes up, abortion rates go
down,” Eden said. “If anything, [Planned Parenthood] needs more funding and more support from people who don’t like abortion,
because they try to prevent that the best way
possible. If you take away sex education, if
you take away prevention, if you take away
screenings, those rates are going to soar.”
The Kansas Coalition for Life (KCFL) is
one local organization that actively campaigns against Planned Parenthood because
they offer abortion. The KCFL believes
Planned Parenthood practices eugenics, adjusting human heredity through selective
breeding. The organization buys and distributes the film “Maafa-21” to Kansans, a documentary that claims Planned Parenthood has
a goal of eliminating the black population
through abortion.
“As the truth about Planned Parenthood
comes out, more and more decent people will
call for an end to funding Planned Parenthood,” said Mark Gietzen, Chairman of the
Board of KCFL. “Fortunately, the most people
in the USA are decent people who want to do
the right thing. Therefore, our educational
efforts are always a top priority.”
Planned Parenthood of Kansas & MidMissouri could not be reached for comment.
Harry McDonald, Board of Directors member of MAINstream Coalition, an organization that promotes the separation of Church
and State, says these claims are baseless. McDonald has attended MAINstream meetings
on the topic of sexual education.
“These charges are meant to incite the ignorant and try to get support for radical ideas
like defunding Planned Parenthood,” McDonald said “If anyone went to a Planned Parenthood office and sat down, that wouldn’t be
the situation. Groups that [claim eugenics]

are just trying to get support for their position, which I believe is indefensible.”
Eden became involved in sexual education avocation through her mother, Reverend Holly McKissick. A Senior Pastor at Saint
Andrew Christian Church, Holly started an
inter-faith Religious Affairs sector of Planned
Parenthood, whose purpose was to show that
there were people of faith who supported
comprehensive sexual education and a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. She
is also a former board member of Planned
Parenthood, where she oversaw their different services.
“I’ve appreciated their courageous stands
at times and their willingness to take up popular issues,” Holly said. “I think no one wants
to see abortion widespread; no one wants to
see abortion used as a form of contraception.”
Holly viewed the proposed defunding of
Planned Parenthood as a “critical loss,” especially because of the impact it would have
on women who are limited financially. She
believes that, if Planned Parenthood funds
were cut, that middle class and upper-middle
class women would be able to find services
elsewhere, but those with less money would
be left without a place to go. Her daughter
thinks that the cuts would be felt even in the
higher socioeconomic classes.
“It’s an awful stereotype that... just because we go to Shawnee Mission East, we’re
not affected by our actions,” Eden said. “Everyone’s vulnerable to this, it doesn’t matter
how much money your parents have, how
superior you think you are to everyone, how
invulnerable you think you are to being affected or getting pregnant. No one is incapable of getting pregnant or spreading an STD
or getting one themselves.”
Senior Caroline Miller was initially
against the Pence Amendment when it was
proposed, but after researching the issue,
she came to support it. Miller thought that
Planned Parenthood was predominately focused on safe sex measures, but felt the organization was biased after reading that they
performed 134 abortions for every adoption
referral. Miller does consider herself prochoice.

“When I look at [legislation], I try to look
at it from an un-biased perspective and try
to look at the facts,” Miller said. “Obviously
[Planned Parenthood] is more supporting
abortion than safe alternatives for any babies
of young moms that are coming in. So, I don’t
think that tax dollars should go to a biased organization no matter what your view of prolife or pro-choice is.”
All Kansas Representatives, including
Kevin Yoder (3rd District) and Tim Huelskamp (1st District) voted in favor of the
Pence Amendment. Huelskamp, in particular, voiced his opinion in the House debate.
His speech, which aired on C-SPAN, discussed
the various charges brought against Planned
Parenthood in Kansas.
In 2007, former Kansas attorney general
Phil Kline’s filed a 107-count criminal case
against Planned Parenthood, the first U.S.
case against the organization. Some of the
charges indicate that the Johnson County
Planned Parenthood failed to report accounts
of sexual abuse. Though the case is still in
courts, it has been stalled due to an ethics
hearing filed against Kline.
Regardless of her opinion, Holly believes
that the debate is just beginning. She feels
there are two options from here: either the
issue will embolden Planned Parenthood
supporters to speak out, or it will give the impression that it is a dying organization.
“Clearly, the issue is not going to go away,”
Holly said. “I think we’re going to continue
to see more and more of these initiatives. It’s
kind of the tip of the iceberg. I expect that it’s
going to keep coming back.”
Eden urges politicians to consider other
budget-cutting options. In the long run, she
believes more unwanted pregnancies will be
a bigger drain on the economy than cutting
Planned Parenthood will save.
“Until we can stop being ignorant about
the fact that teenagers will have sex, even if
you tell them not to, we’re not going to see
any progress,” Eden said. “So at this point,
it’s a matter of accepting that some teenagers will have sex and trying to educate them
about the safest way possible.”

NEWS
issue 13

07

East reacts to AP American History and Biology curriculum changes
AlysabethAlbano
The College Board began offering an Advanced Placement
curriculum for high schools over 50 years ago. The organization hoped these advanced classes would provide students
who wished to go above and beyond the basic curriculum
a chance to take advanced, college-level classes. In 2009, AP
was faced with the highest number of failing grades in years.
Now, they have announced they will implement changes to
their courses with a total revamp of the AP United States History (AHAP) and AP Biology curriculum’s.
Last month’s preview of what the College Board refers to
as the “New A.P” showed that they plan to provide a more indepth curriculum framework of how they suggest the class
be taught. While there is no clear plan for AHAP, the formal
AP Biology Curriculum framework provides the teacher with
guidelines and learning objectives as to how they should
teach each unit. Some units will even include pacing suggestions for how long the class should spend on a certain topic.
Advanced Placement teachers, like AHAP teacher Vicki
Arndt-Helgesen, believes her students often find the amount
of material they are going to cover each year is daunting and,
in her opinion, it is. Current AHAP student Tyler Germann
admits that when he first saw the work load he would encounter he felt the same way.
“When we got our third or fourth book, I was like ‘Oh my
gosh,’ he said. “But after a few weeks I got used to the homework and after the first ‘dessert’ (test) I learned these assignments really help you.”
Currently, according to Arndt-Helgesen, her AHAP class
has to cover from the pre-Colombian era all the way to 2000

in a single year. This feat, she explains, is something not even
a college class would attempt. According to the College Board
“new” AHAP curriculum will include more pre-1607 history.
Arndt-Helgesen has her concerns as to whether the added history will help or hurt her class.
“[You ask yourself] ] ‘What is it that this does?’,” ArndtHelgesen said. “‘Does this end up helping us or does it end up
creating greater stressors for our kids?”’
Course curriculum won’t be the only thing changing in
the upcoming years with the “New AP.” According to the College Board, students can expect major changes when taking
the end-of-year exams. With the new, clear guidelines the
College Board is attempting to provide students with a better
understanding of what will be on the exam. This is something
AP Biology teacher Kimberly VanNice hopes will bring up the
scores on the AP Biology exam. Last year, she estimates that
only 12 students of her 28 students took the exam. According
to her, of those 12 students most of them scored very low. This
is not an uncommon trend. Last year the AP Biology exam received the most failing scores nationwide.
One of the major changes VanNice is looking forward
to is the pacing suggestions with the course guidelines. She
hopes it will provide a clear understanding of how much time
should be spent on certain topics.
“That will help a lot,” VanNice said. “[It will say] you
should spend a quarter on this and a quarter on this. It will
help you, if you’re not there by the end of the quarter, to know
you are behind.”
VanNice believes that the changes will help her teach the
concepts much better than she is able to now. Right now, she

says, she is forced to take out certain units simply because of
time. With so much to cover, she feels she isn’t able to include
more fun, hands on projects. Arndt-Helgesen faces the same
problem in AHAP. In her opinion, the large curriculum takes
away time to do “value-added” activities, like reading extra
articles. VanNice hopes the new outlined objectives will give
her a more specific guideline to follow.
“[With the current curriculum] I feel like I have to teach
everything in Biology which is not possible but there are no
real guidelines that say this is important and this isn’t,” VanNice said.
Arndt-Helgesen agrees that it is impossible to teach everything in her class and feels she has to let herself off the hook
for it. In her opinion, if you teach a good history class students
will walk away with a good understanding of it, even if you
miss something here and there.
Other changes to the AP exam include scoring and questions format. The College Board plans to add more essay
questions to the AP Biology exam in place of multiple choice
questions. Also, with these changes students will no longer
need to worry about losing a quarter point for each incorrect
answer on the exam.
The College Board released a formal outline of the AP
Biology class will look like starting in the 2012-2013 school
year but the fate of AHAP is still unknown. However, ArndtHelgesen feels confident she will be able to accommodate any
changes that are made, in fact, she has already started to think
about how she will change the way she teaches.
“I’m really awed by how much [the students] grow,” she
said. “The growth is pretty cool. It’s worth all of the stress.”

APRIL

NEWS
08 04-04-11

THEBRIEFS
JackHowland
CarolineCreidenberg

4

5

*7-9

6

The
Government Inspector
ny, the deliv-

16
17
18
19

15

In short, the spring show is about
a corrupt Russian town who learns
that a government inspector will be
in their midst. In the city’s effort to
cover their tracks and clean up the
community, they mistakenly identify
a down on his luck, regular guy as
the inspector. As their predicament
continues, clever hijinks ensue.
Drama teacher Brian Cappello
explains the comedy as
“over-the-top.”
“The lines are
rapid fire, the
dialogue is
very
fun-

14

On April
16, the 10th Annual Earth Fair is
coming to East. There
will a short film festival, a
farmers’ market, eco-venders,
green arts and crafts, and many
other eco-friendly activities. The
event is open to the public and
very kid friendly.
“I think it helps people become
more aware of things they can do
to help the environment,” Social
skills and organizer of the fair,
Kristin Carmody said.
The theme this year is In Home
Sustainability and the Fair’s goal
is to “bring home the eco-friendliness.”
“We want to promote sustainability and for them to take home
the ideas we give them at the fair,”
Fair coordinator Katie Nixon said.
The Environmental Club originally started it with the city of
Prairie Village 11 years ago to help
keep people aware. Ever since then

ery is quick,” Cappello said. “There’s
a lot to see, there’s double entendres—just the writing itself is very
clever.”
Members of the cast and crew
have been preparing a month for the
performance. Typically in practice
they will rehearse, work on tempo
and even line memorization. Above
all else, they work on their timing to
match the show’s quick pace.
Cappello says that East’s 2006
production of “A Servant of Two
Masters” was the only recent East
show that rivals the fast-paced action of “The Government Inspector.”
Also, the play is very different in it’s
intimate scenery. It takes place at
the front of the stage for it’s entirety.
The show will play three nights
starting at 7 p.m.

13
it has
been a tradition for many.
The fair will feature
special musical guest
Checkered Past.
The event starts at 10 a.m.
and will go until 3 p.m.
“It’s going to be a lot of fun,”
Carmody said, “so people should
really try to come and support it.”

NEWS
A Brief look at
national news
quoting

*

“This is not an outcome the
U.S. or any of our partners
sought. We cannot stand
idly by when a tyrant tells
his people there will be no
mercy.” -Obama on Libya

“We consider the resignation of president Mubarak
to be the start of the victory of the Egyptian revolution, which we support
with all its demands.”

-Egyptian oppostion
movement spokersperson,
Sami Abu Zuhri
I mean this is a very serious problem with, you know, widespread
ramifications and, you know, first
and foremost, we want to help the
Japanese, our great ally, deal with
this and limit the - the damage to
the health and safety of the Japanese people.

10
12

-Clinton on Japan

*

where do you like to get your news?
TV: 25%

Newspapers: 28%

11

EARTH FAIR

20

IN THE

21 22

Websites: 47%

*survey based off
smeharbinger.net
poll of 62 students

23 24

feministhemes.com

interet-generalinfo.com

eduinreview.com

ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT

EDITORIAL
issue 13

09

District cuts to the special education department will put
an unnecessary workload on the remaining teachers

1100

Harbinger
the

a publication of shawnee mission east high school
7500 Mission Road, Prairie Village, KS 66208

ment or pull more money from the general education fund.
The federal government has realized the importance of special education, and it is imperative that the state and district
follow suit, even when cuts are made to education elsewhere.
It is understandable that some teachers from each department
would be put
on excess, but
Letters to the editor should be sent to
room 521 or smeharbinger@gmail.com.
it is inexcusLetters may be edited for clarity, length,
able when one
libel and mechanics and accepted or reof the departjected at the editor’s discretion.
ments that supports students
the most is given the least funding.

PeterHung

For the next school year, the district has placed 139 teach- abilities, history of special education tells us that they are the
ers on excess; 13 of them are from East. Four of the 13 of those first ones to kind of be pushed aside to sit and do activities that
teachers are in the special education department; it’s unac- are not meaningful, like sitting and doing puzzles and colorceptable that one department of 12 represents 30 percent of ing all the time, because that’s the easiest thing to get them
the teachers placed on excess. In excess, these teachers will not to do so you can focus on other tasks,” Johnson said. “That is
be hired back unless 139 other teachers in the district choose very sad and unfortunate, and I don’t want to see that happen.”
to retire or leave—something Principal Karl Krawitz thinks is
The case load could also be reduced if IEPs were assigned
unlikely.
more sparingly to gifted students. While some gifted stuThe cuts come as a result of federal and state funding cuts dents do indeed benefit from the specialized curriculum, the
the Shawnee Mission School District has been forced to enact teacher’s time could be better spent on special needs students;
this spring. According to Dr. Krawitz, the state has not been is- the gifted students should not have to opt-out of the IEP, but
suing their full allocation of funding to districts since January; rather opt-in annually if they want the extra guidance that an
he says the district is “literally running on reserves.”
IEP provides. Otherwise, valuable teacher time is wasted on
“That’s where we’re at, because we’ve already cut to where students who will benefit less from the added attention than a
there is no more,” Dr. Krawitz said. “It’s like starving the cow special needs student would.
where there is no more fat, and now we’re cutting into the
Dr. Krawitz insists that the state is responsible for 75 perheart of what makes you tick.”
cent of Special Education funding, but says that the school has
The special education department will unfairly suffer the received in-between 62 and 68 percent in recent years. The
most; according to Dr. Krawitz, the staff will drop by one-third, rest must come out of school’s general education funding.
from eight to 12. This includes a Transition Specialist, who According to an article published in the Lawrence Journal
helps students with special needs find jobs or further their World on Feb. 23, Kansas has been mandated by the
education after high school.
federal government to increase special education
Even with cuts, the East administration needs to allocate funding by $26 million.
more funding to the department so that it can maintain qualThis state boost in funding will help,
ity of instruction and keep student-to-teacher ratios from and it is important that the state gives
raising. Cutting one-third of a department is an unaccept- more money to special education–even
able drop, especially when the bigger cuts are yet to come; Dr. amidst general education cuts–so that
Krawitz thinks the budget situation could result in 15-20 more individual schools
teachers being put on excess next year.
don’t have to deSpecial education depends on hands-on teaching (see “Shar- cide whether to
ing Their Skills,” pages 16-17), something that is lost when sig- reduce the departnificant numbers of a department are put on
excess. The teachers will also have to oversee The majority opinion of the
more Individual Education Programs (IEPs), Harbinger Editorial Board
for
against absent
which are the academic programs tailored for
both gifted and special needs students. Special
education teacher Maureen Johnson is afraid
the increase in case loads might pull the department too thin.
“As a teacher of students with severe dis-

It all started back in November of last year, when I applied to go on a mission trip with my church––a trip with my
brother and 20 other people who would become some of my
closest of friends. Little did I know that this trip to a tiny town
in Guatemala is a trip that would change my life and my perspective for the better.
Jumping forward five months, it was finally time to embark on a trip of a lifetime. After packing in one suitcase, realizing it was too small, and repacking in another, it was time.
Months of preparation, raising funds, and planning lead to
this moment. It was time to get in the car, travel to the airport,
say my goodbyes to my parents, and hop on the plane.
By the time March 10 rolled around, I couldn’t pay attention in school, and I couldn’t think about anything but Guatemala. When I finally arrived at the airport, it was bittersweet:
I knew that I was going to go make a difference in the lives of
150 elementary-age kids, but, on the other hand, I was saying
goodbye to my parents for 10 days and leaving the country for
my first time without them.
Day 2:
Once the hour and a half flight from Kansas City to Houston, one night in the hotel, and another three hour flight to
Guatemala City were all over, I had finally landed in the country where my life would be altered.
Flexibility––one of the traits my youth pastor Nate
stressed before the trip even started. No sooner did we land
in Guatemala City that this very virtue was tested. After our
group had exchanged our money, we went go grab our bags
off of the carousel and get on the buses. That’s when my friend
Tori realized her bag wasn’t there, and instead she had accidentally retrieved an identical bag that belonged to a guy in
a different group: he had taken the wrong bag, and left Tori
with his. There was a moment of freak out, but she handled
it well, and the rest of our group just went to a parking lot
and played Mafia, a game where the main idea is to figure out
who the members of the circle are in the mafia and kill them
before they kill you (without doing any real damage). No one
complained, and no one was agitated that we weren’t exactly
on schedule. Our group was flexible, a great sign for the days
to come.
Day 3:
Zip-line day. The day I had been looking forward to for
months. This was the day that I was going to go on the tallest
zip-line in the world. It was between two beautiful, forested
mountains about 600 feet in the air. It had an amazing view of
Lake Atitlan, the lake by the town, and the beauty that Guatemala is known for.
I love heights. I can’t recall a moment that I’ve ever been
nervous about being up high. I love roller coasters, and, to me,
the inch-thick cable and position in a harness was just another roller coaster. The scariest part of the day was the windy
ride up the side of the mountain to actually get to the zip-line.

MEMORIES

AND

hour drive to the base of the volcano, but the rising sun and
the views on the way there totally made it worth it.
The hike to the top of the volcano only took about two
hours, but it was practically straight up and comparable to
hiking on sand––the further we went along, the more desolate
the volcano became. The trees got fewer and farther between,
and there was no wildlife to speak of. By the time we reached
the top it was as if we were hiking on Mars. It was desolate and
covered in sharp little lava rocks, but the view was amazing. I
could see all of Guatemala City in one direction, and the surrounding farms and Pacific Ocean on the other side. It was one
of the most amazing sights I’ve ever seen.
***
Going to Guatemala isn’t something that everyone gets to
do their sophomore year of high school, and for getting the
opportunity to do so, I’m very fortunate. The trip wasn’t something that I just went on to have a good time or because it’s
what people do when they reach a certain age in high school
at my church: it was something that I knew would change my
life, and help me to grow closer to not only the people around
me, but also God.
Spending time with the kids of the town was so much
more rewarding for me than relaxing on a beach for five days.
I’m not saying that relaxing on a beach is a bad thing, it’s
just not what I thought was the best, or most valuable way
of spending my spring break. I loved the time I had to build
relationships with my friends here in the U.S., but also the
new friends I’ve made in Guatemala. The new people I met
and was able to spend time with I now consider to be very
close friends of mine, and brothers and sisters in God’s family.
My life is now something I want to use to help others and
show them the love of God. I don’t just want to sit on my
butt my whole life and not try to make a difference in that
of someone else. By going to Guatemala I’ve started to realize
that making a difference in someone’s life is so much more
valuable than anything else I could ever do.

“ “ “

MOMENTS

1

We had two little Toyota pick-up trucks complete with a metal bar in the middle and metal gates around the sides. We fit
12 of us in one truck and 13 in the other. The ride was an hour
of standing and attempting to balance amidst a dozen other
people. Our diver had to lay on the horn every time he turned,
because there was no way to see around the corner and the
roads were so narrow that it was hard for two cars to pass at
once. The ride was well worth the view and the wonderful
time I had on what seemed like the top of the world.
Day 5:
I’m by no means an artistic person. I’ve never taken an art
class at East, and I didn’t do very well in my elementary art
classes, yet I still signed up to teach first through sixth graders art for four days. My only reasoning behind signing up
was that it sounded more fun than English, science, or P.E. It
ended up being one of the most rewarding and exhausting
things I’ve ever done: I volunteered to take the mural day, and
to teach the kids about something I knew very little about.
In one of our many Sunday morning meetings before the
trip, one of my group members mentioned the idea of the
entire school in Guatemala making a mural. Each one of us
cut out about 20 pieces of muslin fabric into one foot by one
foot squares and packed them into our designated art suitcase.
When we got there the kids divided themselves into groups of
two or three and decorated the square with something important to them. It was amazing to see how creative they were––
it seemed like the squares all had mountains, and something
to do with God. At first I was confused about why the mountains and lake were so important to them, but then I realized
that the scenery was all they knew. These kids were born in
San Juan La Laguna, Guatemala and the farthest most of them
will ever go is about four hours across a lake and through the
mountains to Guatemala City.
Here I was, about 1,500 miles away from home, and they
might not ever leave their little town. It was so eye-opening,
and even somewhat humbling. Teaching and playing with
the kids was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
Day 9:
After our time in San Juan we took the boat back across
the lake and hopped on a bus to travel to Antigua, one of the
most famous cities in Guatemala. The city was crowded with
tourists from around the world and filled with wonderful
Guatemalan culture. The market itself was cloaked in beautiful, bright colors and unique handmade goods. It was the time
of our trip to just wind down and have a little fun as a group.
The second day we were in Antigua we had the opportunity to sign up for an excursion hiking up one of the three
active volcanoes in Guatemala. On May 6, 2010 at 6:30 p.m.
the volcano exploded and covered the surrounding villages
and cities with ash up to knee height. By now, the volcano is
pretty much calm with the exception of continuous smoke
billowing from the peak. We had to leave at 6 a.m. to make the

The relationships I built
over the week with the
other girls on the trip are
something I will value for
the rest of my life. We
had so much fun and they
helped make the trip so
amazing.

”

2

This little boy lived
across with his mom
and older sister. He
was such a cute little
boy and it was wonderful to get to spend
time with him and his
family.

”

3

The second grade was
definitely the craziest grade. There were
a few kids who were
so full of energy and
wouldn’t sit down but
they were all great.

”

OPINION
Staffer expresses feelings for disloyal fans

Under
FAIRWEA HER
I hate the Royals.
I loathe the Chiefs, T-Bones
and Sporting Kansas City. I can’t
stand the Jayhawks, Wildcats or
any of the Big 12 schools.
an opinion of Chris Heady
They’re too hard to cheer for,
so I stopped. Now this may sound
ridiculous, but hear me out.
The Royals haven’t had a decent year since 2003, and
they didn’t even make the playoffs that year. Lets face it KC,
they suck. The Chiefs never get far into the playoffs, so why
waste the time and energy rooting for them?
I just can’t do it anymore. I see no reason why I would
cheer for a hometown team, especially since none of them
dominate their respective sport.
No, seriously, what’s the appeal to cheering for them? Because they’re a hometown team? Psh, just because I’ve lived
in KC my whole life and my siblings go to KU doesn’t mean
I should cheer for the Chiefs and Jayhawks.
You see, I cheer for teams like Ohio State. They’re easy to
cheer for, since their football and basketball programs are

never a disappointment. I’m usually guaranteed a
Rose Bowl and a Sweet Sixteen every year, so I don’t
have to worry about a Bucknell-like upset in the first
round or a mediocre football year. Like I said, it’s easy.
I mean, why trade that to cheer for the Jayhawks,
who usually don’t make a bowl game in football and
have been upset in the tourney in the past? Why risk
it?
I cheer for the UConn women’s basketball team,
North Carolina’s women’s soccer team and Penn
State’s volleyball team. Domination station.
People like Rafael Nadal, LeBron James and John
Calipari make me as giddy as a four-month-old pup-

py.
I love me some Big East basketball, SEC football and Texas baseball: the powerhouses that embarrass all the rest of
the college world.
I cheer for Olathe North football and Wichita Heights
basketball.
What, you think just because I go to East means I cheer
for East? No no, don’t be silly. I cheer for the best teams, remember?
It doesn’t make sense why you wouldn’t just cheer for the
best teams.
Why get to know a team and learn to love them, even
though they have a chance to lose, when you can barely
know the team’s starting line-up and win by 30?
I cheer for teams that dominate, not teams that pour
their heart into every play in every game, only to see a loss.
No no, I ridicule teams like them. I make jokes about
them; about their losses and poke fun at their close heartbreaking losses.
Team’s that have fans that are as loyal as a St. Bernard’s

Staff member describes impact
my chemistry lab, I decided to
of music on life and
pick up my bass rather than resort-

When I was eight, I asked my
mom if I could start playing the
cello. It could have been because I had seen my older cousin
playing it over Christmas, or just because it looked cool; I
honestly don’t remember. But here I am nine years later, still
playing in the school orchestra––now, on upright bass. At
the age of 17, there are relatively few things that have been a
constant in my life for almost a decade, but playing a musical instrument is one thing that has. However, I didn’t really
appreciate or even acknowledge the role that music holds in
my life until recently.
As a kid, I had never been very good at practicing, mostly
due to the fact that playing an instrument came relatively
easy to me, and I could usually get by with minimal effort.
In my mind, the idea of playing every day was right up there
with making my bed and washing the dishes.
However, each day of practice, although I despised it at
the time, chipped away at this negative mindset about playing that I had. By high school, the word practice no longer
sent chills up my spine, but this was partly due to the fact
that I rarely had to practice. My parents were passed the
point of monitoring my habits, and with the busyness of
school, swimming and volunteering, I usually opted for free
time instead.
Fast-forward to the beginning of junior year. By then, I
was no longer taking private lessons, so my bass playing basically consisted of 90 minutes in orchestra class every other
day.
As a junior, I was under more stress than I had ever dealt
with. One day, needing a break between my history essay
an opinion of Julia Davis

issue 13

disgust me. I feel sorry for them, suffering with the team after each loss.
Loyalty shmoyalty, I want championships. Get me a ring
and be done with it.
Some scrawny teams even have supporters that stay until the very end of a game even when they are destined to
lose... Who are these people?
I was dragged to the KU football game on Nov. 7 by a
friend. We watched the Jayhawks from the nose-bleeds fall
to a 35 point deficit by the fourth quarter, so we left. I truly
feel bad for those who stayed to suffer through the blow-out.
Those poor, poor Jayhawk fans. I didn’t check the score afterwords, I figure they lost. I heard cheers from the parking
lot. I figured they didn’t mean much. Like the KU football
team is going to comeback down 35 in the fourth quarter to
Colorado, am I right?
Let’s be practical. Who actually cheers for hometown
players? No one.
Who would cheer for Alec Burks, the Grandview High
School graduate who currently plays for Colorado. The
same guy who had the flu and was in bed all day the day of
the NIT quarterfinal, had an IV in his arm at halftime and
still scored 25 points. I mean he’s a sophomore still in college, and isn’t in the NBA yet. What a nobody.
Who would cheer for Mike Sweeney? A long-time Royal
who was the shining light on a series of under-achieving
teams, yet, signed a one day contract with the Royals so he
could retire in the town he loved. The guy will never see
Cooperstown, he’ll soon be forgotten.
I also think Michael Jordan was the most overrated player in the history of sports. I hate Christmas, my birthday and
enjoy burning buildings.
I just love fair-weather fans.

Bassic
Instinct

ing to the usual hour-long Facebook fest. What started out as a few
minutes of jamming out to “Sunshine of Your Love” turned into an
hour of improvised runs and jazz
tunes, and I hadn’t even realized as
the time flew by. For the first time,
I actually enjoyed playing the bass.
This hour took me away from
the stress of normal life and let me just enjoy myself without the thought of tests, swim practices or deadlines. It was
better than any feeling my iPod could provide.
For the next couple weeks, when I felt like a million
things were rushing around my mind, I would pick up my
bass and forget about it all.
For the first time in my life, orchestra became one of my
favorite classes at school, and as I look back, I see how much
it has brought me.
For one thing, orchestra has allowed me to meet so many
interesting and quirky people who I wouldn’t otherwise
have gotten to know: it is a place where you can be yourself
and not worry about what anyone thinks.
The experiences that orchestra has brought me will always stick out in my mind as highlights in my journey of
being a musician. I have had the honor of making state orchestra the past two years, which comes with a three-day
workshop in Wichita where you meet great musicians from
all around Kansas. Being at state showed me how much time
and effort some people put into their instrument, and how
talented they are because of it. There aren’t many places

11

where a high school student
would have the opportunity to play
Berlioz’s Symphony Fantastique with
other high schoolers and have it sound decent, but at state
our final concert was not just decent; it was incredible.
Playing the bass has helped me work through some
tough things this year by helping me express myself and put
my emotions, good or bad, toward something that will have
a positive effect on my life. I know that whenever I am overwhelmed, my bass will always be there, no matter how bad
a mood I am in.
Although I never would have thought so at the beginning of my high school career, playing bass and being involved in orchestra have become important parts of my life.
I hope to continue playing bass in the future, not just in college but as an adult as well. I know that no matter what age
I may be, there will always be things in my life that are hard
to deal with, and I take comfort in the fact that whether I’m
happy or sad, young or old, alone or surrounded by people,
I will always be able to pick up my bass, forget about the
world and just play.

FEATURES

04-04-11

a

drive for

photo illustration by GrantHeinlein

direction

Senior writes Frequent Friday based on racing experiences

KennedyBurgess

He paces.
Senior Sean Bailey’s tattered jeans drag
beneath the heels of his bare feet as he walks
back and forth on the dim stage of the little
theater. He clutches a flimsy spiral notebook
in his right hand, periodically looking down
at the notes sprawled across the thin blue
lines.
Bailey is running a rehearsal for his selfwritten “mockumentary” comedy Frequent
Friday—“24: the Documentary” premiering
April 15.
He walks over to sophomore Beth Liu as
she asks a question, holding up the yellow
highlighted script.
As he intuitively runs his right hand
through his unshorn blond hair, he traces
over her lines with his other hand. The other
cast members gather in pairs of two, studying
and repeating their lines, their voices becoming a continuous string of emotions.
Once a mere idea in Bailey’s mind, “24:
the Documentary” is slowly taking shape on
stage.
Going into his freshman year at Rockhurst,
Bailey couldn’t have cared less about where
his life was headed.
“I was kind of one of those kids that was
like ‘f*** the world! I don’t give a s***!’” Bailey said. “I just thought I was this piece of s***
that didn’t know anything.”
Bailey was diagnosed with ADHD that
same year.
English class had always been a struggle
for Bailey when it came to writing.
“It’s like; I could picture anything in my
mind—‘rain dropping down on a woman’s
head’,” Bailey said. “But it never turned out the
same way I pictured it when I put it down on
paper.”
His teachers and counselors would regu-

the

ma
kin

go

f

24

Sean Bailey talks about the process of
directing and writing his Frequent Friday

larly tell him he wasn’t working hard enough
or wasn’t focused, and he began to believe
them
It’s 7:00 p.m. on Feb. 3, opening night of
East’s production of “Beauty and the Beast.”
The curtains part in Dan Zollars Auditorium. Senior Emily Welter saunters on stage
as junior Nathan Are, playing Belle’s father
totters towards her, pulling along his most recent invention.
The audience watches the metallic blue,
green, and red cardboard sprockets turn in opposite directions on the pentagon shaped object that follows him. Golden-orange tassels
shimmer as they graze the surface of the stage.
Bailey hunches down inside his creation,
regulating the movements and turns, bringing the cardboard entity to life.
Just months before the show, musical director Tom DeFeo approached Bailey, asking
if he would build Maurice’s invention. Bailey
had had previous involvement in East theater,
being cast in productions such as “Grapes of
Wrath” and as Mr. Gibbs in “Arsenic and Old
Lace” his junior year when he switched from
Rockhurst to East, but this would give him the
chance to work behind the scenes.
He researched what other theater productions had created for the invention, but Bailey
wasn’t inspired.
Days of designing and redesigning occupied Bailey’s time. He had never put so much
effort into anything in his life, but for once he
wanted something to be proud of. Something
to call his own.
Bailey thought up the idea for his show
after watching a documentary on a 24-hour
rally car race in southern France.
“I just noticed how they made it seem so
dramatic and unearthly, but when it really
comes down to it, it’s just a race,” Bailey said.

Start Your Engines - Brainstorming
“The idea was triggered by three things.
First, seeing the movie ‘Slapshot,’ a comedy
hockey movie, then a documentary about a
famous race in France and finally a classical
song called “Rhapsody in Blue.” I mixed
the characters from the comedy into the
documentary to make a mockumentary. The
music sets the mood.”

With the unconstructive negativity
bounding him at Rockhurst, Bailey initiated a
pursuit in rally car racing. He looked to it as a
hobby, something for him to simply achieve.
Bailey changed schools his junior year,
seeing more potential to expand his mind and
ideas at East.
His life had gotten to a point where Bailey
needed to change everything about himself.
He needed to do something.
This attitude carried on when he was diagnosed with Dyslexia the summer before his
senior year.
As he sat in the doctor’s office after being
diagnosed, Bailey picked up a pamphlet written towards people with learning disabilities.
He opened to the first page—“FAMOUS PEOPLE WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES” stared
back at him in bold letters. Bailey scrolled
his eyes down the list—“Leonardo da Vinci” popped up halfway down. Bailey went home
and began researching da Vinci.
“Da Vinci was capable of incredible
things,” Bailey said. “From that, I realized that
if I just had some faith in myself and some
motivation I could do things that nobody else
could.”
With the background from three years of
studying rally racing on his own, Bailey began to write. He gathered inspiration from
watching racing on TV and the 1977 hockey
comedy film “Slapshot.” He wanted to incorporate the Hanson brothers from the film to
bring three ridiculously wacky characters to
his show. Bailey also poured aspects of himself into the characters, while still creating a
different person for each.
When theater directer Brian Capello first
saw the rough draft of Bailey’s show, he was
impressed.
“It showed in the writing that this was

Pit Stop - Writing Process
“I never wrote at home, I don’t
know why. I wrote in classes when
I could. It took me probably a year
and three months to write. I had to
choose the show for my Frequent Friday
around this time last year. I decided to
write a play myself... I didn’t know what I
was getting into.”

something that he knew a lot about,” Capello
said. “It was well thought out and fun to read.”
Bailey takes the audience through the
24-hour race, following a team of mechanics
working against their own struggles for GM
as they attempt to overcome various obstacles
to win the race.
Bailey wanted more than just comedic relief to come from his show. Beneath the quirkiness and laughs, he wanted to incorporate a
moral into his story.
“I think it kind of teaches a lesson,” Bailey
said. “Like Da Vinci would say: Who are we to
say what is possible and impossible?”
The little theater is dark with a soft buzz
filling the room—the only source of sound
streaming is Bailey’s fingers tapping against
the desk in Cappello’s office. He looks beyond the window connecting the office and
the back of the theater, twisting the grey nob
attached to the dashboard that controls the
stage lights.
It’s 12:30 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon.
Bailey is perfecting the light set up for his frequent friday, using a technique he calls “barn
doors” to offset the light to only hit the right
side of the stage.
After high-school, Bailey will take a year
off to really figure out what what he wants to
do.
“I want to race, I want to build things, I
want to act,” Bailey said. “There are a billion
things I’d like to do and maybe one day I’ll
eventually get everything done, but I don’t
think that will happen because I’ll just want
to do more.”

To see a video feature about Sean
Bailey’s racing visit smeharbinger.net

Checkered Flag - Acting it Out
“I’ve had my image of what it should look
like while I was writing. It’s difficult to adapt
my vision to a cast. I developed the characters a long time ago, and it’s difficult
to watch my cast try to develop their
own characters when they come automatically to me. But it’s really coming along
well, and each day it gets better.”

images courtesy of Clkr.com

12

architecture / planning / interior design
www.hmnarchitects.com

/ blog.hmnarchitects.
































14

FEATURES
04-04-11

‘bass’ic skill
Junior plays the bass and records in upper level bands
HaleyMartin
Junior Brooks Sargent enters his jazz-funk-reggae band
practice, sets down his rectangular bass case and leaves
through the multicolored door of Waldo Guitar on Wornall.
He returns with three amplifiers he had been keeping in the
back of his car for gigs and other band practices that he attends
throughout the week. It takes about an hour for the drummer
Darrell Haramoto, the guitarist and East alum Brian Frantz
and Sargent to set up for their practices: each member brings
their own amplifier and multiple recording devices, as well as
their own instruments.
When their band practice begins, they come to the consensus to play a reggae tune. Sargent’s fingers dance over the
strings of his bass and the melodic beat plays out of the multiple amplifiers. Sargent stands up and uses his left leg to keep
the beat while playing. During the song, he easily changes the
volume of his bass to mesh with his musical counterparts.
Sargent began playing the bass in elementary school, when
he and a few of his friends created a band whose name was
constantly fluctuating. He began messing around on the guitar, but one of his band members had previously began taking
lessons and thus was more experienced, so Sargent switched
to the bass. He taught himself simple songs by punk rock
bands like Blink 182 and Green Day.
Sargent was inspired by numerous bass players to play a
technique which is dubbed “slap,” which produces a percussive sound generally used in jazz or funk. There are numerous versions of how to “slap” but generally it entails using the
thumb and pinkie finger to pluck the strings in rhythm.
“I’ve been learning songs and watching lots of YouTube videos to get the technique, and I have been playing a lot because
practice makes perfect,” Sargent said “It’s a saying that goes for
a lot of things––I am not saying that I am perfect at all, but
playing a lot helps.”
He started taking bass lessons two years ago with Frantz
who owns the Waldo Guitar shop, plays professionally and is
generally a well-known guitarist in the Kansas City area, according to Haramoto. During these two years, Sargent practiced extensively on mastering the bass. He also joined various bands to increase the amount of time he could play. After
only two years of taking lessons with Frantz, who said that
Sargent had surpassed him in his ability to play the bass, but
desired to continue learning new skills. Frantz had previously
been approached by Darrell, who had heard Frantz playing
and wanted to create a band. Frantz replied that he had a bass
player who he considered to be a prodigy who he was looking

to create a band with.
“I had nothing else to teach him,” Frantz said. “So I
asked him to join my band.”
At Waldo Guitar, Sargent plays with his band mates
who are approximately twice his age, although he
doesn’t acknowledge the difference while practicing.
Haramoto and Sargent have had competitions to see who
can play the quickest: Sargent more often than not wins,
even though Darrell has four limbs at his disposal and formerly played the drums professionally in Hawaii.
The band records their practices on a sound mixer
and Sargent’s laptop, part of the reason is that it takes the
members an hour to set up their equipment before practicing. Since they record every practice, they can mix their
songs together post-practice and create CDs to send out to
friends and possible gigs.
“We record all of our practices so that we can listen
to them, and pick songs out of our recordings or parts
that we liked, and then make them into songs,” Sargent said. “It’s not the traditional way of writing
music, but when we jam together at practices it
just flows really well.”
Sargent also records himself playing on
his laptop at home. He purchased a recording device off of amazon.com, which he
connects a USB cable to that transfers the
recordings straight to his laptop. The microphone is supposed to record the bass
the same as if they were recording in a
professional studio.
“[Recording] is a world that requires
a lot of funds and a lot of knowledge
of the music world,” Sargent said. “Just
about as much as pure talent when it
gets as technical as recording.”
Sargent has become extremely
committed to the bass through his extensive practicing and recording. Playing the bass is his passion and he plans
on continuing to improve and pursue
a professional career in music.
“It’s scary how good [Sargent] is going to get,” said Darrell. “The boy can
hit it big if he keeps growing on [his]
instrument.”

sargent’s favorite bass players
Brendan
Dulohery

victor wooten

percy jones jaco pastorius marcus miller

larry graham

For additional coverage including music
and photos on Brooks Sargent, visit smeharbinger.net

Photo illustration by EmmaRobson, photos courtesy of JennaMiller

FEATURES

Freshman strives to live as a normal teenager after a
childhood accident left her with epilepsy

KatieKnight
As Jenna Miller pedals down the sidewalk on Mission Road, the hot July sun glares
down on her blue bike, making it sparkle.
Jenna, nine at the time, is riding with her
brother Jacob and his two friends, headed to
the Corinth Library in hopes of finding something to do. Finally, they reach the parking lot
and turn in, headed for the brown doors.
They pause to let a white Toyota Camry
pass, but the woman driving waves for them
to go ahead. Jacob goes first, followed by his
two friends, then Jenna in the back. As she’s
about to clear the car, she feels a bang on
her left leg, right by the knee. Before she can
think, she’s being dragged on the ground, her
leg caught on the bumper.
Dazed and unable to scream, she couldn’t
get the driver’s attention. Jenna was dragged
180 feet before the woman driving realized
there was a child attached to her bumper.
Finally, a veterinarian walking some dogs
banged on the driver’s windshield to get her
to stop. Before then, Jenna was unable to
feel anything, but upon stopping, the pain
brought her to screams.
“I didn’t really know what was going on.”
Jenna said. “I didn’t know what I was happening until the car stopped, and then I was like,
‘Oh my God…I just got hit by a car.’”
***
First, Jenna’s older sister Jade Wolf arrived after getting a call from Nancy, who
knew Jade would beat her there. When the
ambulance arrived, paramedics poured out
the doors. They carefully strapped Jenna to a
gurney and shipped she and her sister, Jade,
then 20, off to Shawnee Mission Medical
Center. All Jenna remembers is medics frantically taking her vital signs. At first, Jenna
was in complete shock, and everything was
blurred. After minutes went by, the massive ache in her leg took over and she could
think of nothing else. Meanwhile, Jade, was

huddled in the corner, watching her sister sob
uncontrollably, feeling helpless. Jenna’s mom
Nancy Wolf, had called Jade telling her to go
to Jenna because she’d be able to get there
quicker.
Trying to lighten up the situation, she
said, “Hey, Jenna?” She pointed at Jenna’s
wounded leg. “Do you want me to poke it?”
Jenna and the paramedics burst out laughing, breaking the tight energy. After the good
break from the tension, the paramedics turn
back to their work.
***
Jenna was in the hospital for not even
24 hours. Despite the seriousness of the accident, only a few bumps and bruises and a
broken leg were visible. For Jenna, the worst
part of all was a tie between the mushy hospital cafeteria tater tots and not being able to
shower all day.
The weeks after her dismissal went
smoothly. Since she wasn’t easily mobile, she
spent many hours watching Disney Channel
and playing Game Cube with Jacob to pass
the time. She faithfully went to every soccer
practice to sit on the bench and cheer on her
team.
“I didn’t really have much to do after the
accident, but after I got used to everything, it
just kind of became my lifestyle,” Jenna said.
“I got full strength in my left leg back and all
of my muscle, too.”
Weeks went by, and the accident was in
the past for Jenna. School had just started, and
she was almost ready to return to the soccer
field.
***
Jenna is woken up by the kitchen phone’s
piercing ring. Groggily, she gets out of bed
and answers.
“Hello?” Jenna said.
“Hi, honey,” Nancy said.
This is Jenna’s daily routine. Every morning, as her mom goes to work early, she calls

[Jenna]
quick facts about

It has been

a year and a half since

Jenna had a

Jenna’s

MEDS

used to cost

$60
per month

Jenna to wake her up and to tell her to have
a good day.
As they continue their conversation and
Nancy is about to say goodbye, suddenly Jenna’s whole body tenses up, and she’s unable
to move. The phone in her hand slips from
her fingers and crashes on the floor. Two or
three minutes later, Jenna regains control and
picks up the phone, unaware that any time
has passed.
“I didn’t know what was wrong,” Nancy
said. “But I knew something was. It took
about a week before I actually saw one and
realized what was happening.”
The first time Nancy actually witnessed
one of Jenna’s incidents, she immediately
took Jenna to St. Luke’s, where tests were run
for about a week.
Jenna lays down on a MRI bed and takes a
deep breath. Nurses come up and stick some
sucky things attached to some wires to her
head; the monitor next to her starts beeping.
“All right, Jenna,” the doctor said. “We’re
going to scan your brain today. When you go
into the MRI, you need to stay as still as possible. But most importantly, we need you to
fall asleep.”
“They had to hook her brain up to all
these machines and monitors, and they had
to draw blood every day,” Nancy said. “Her entire head was wrapped in bandaging; all you
could see was her face. She was a trooper, but
I think she was scared.”
After seven days of testing, Jenna was sent
home, without answers. She returned for several more tests for the next few months, and
after awhile, it was discovered that she had
epilepsy, but from unknown causes. Her doctor finally decided to send them to the University of Chicago Medical Center for more
advanced research.
According to Jenna’s neurologist, Dr. Mark
Korhman of the University of Chicago Medical Center, epilepsy is a disorder where the
brain fires in an abnormal fashion, causing
them to have what is called a seizure.
When she arrived at the University of Chicago, she met Dr. Korhman. There, they gave
her more EEG tests, and discovered that the
seizures she had been having for the past few
months were caused by head trauma-induced
epilepsy.
“What happens is, when you bang your
head, you can bruise the brain just like you
can bang your arm if you hit it on the wall,
for example.” Korhman said. “And when you
bang your head, you’ve lost some brain cells
at that point, which can cause scarring and
cause seizures.”
She was sent home with strict doctors’
orders: no video games, no arcades, no strobe
lights, and minimal TV and computer time. If
she gets headaches, dizzy or light-headed she
should lie down and rest immediately. If she
starts vomiting it is usually a sign of a grand

Jenna spent

2

hours in the

hospital

issue 13

15

mal seizure (a seizure where the body stiffens and jerk all over and have loss of bladder
control, usually lasting two to three minutes)
coming on, to call 911.
It was not easy for Jenna to live with all
these restrictions, as a 10 year old. In addition
to the extra caution she now had to take, she
also lost a lot of friends that year, according
to Nancy.
“I think this was more because of parents
not understanding the disease…like their kids
were going to catch it or something,” Nancy
said. “In fifth grade, the school actually asked
me to not let her go on a field trip because
they were afraid she might have a seizure,
but the kid with diabetes gets to go, or the
kid who is mentally challenged, know what
I mean?”
The other huge challenge that came with
epilepsy was the affect it had on Jenna’s
learning abilities. The blow to her head really
caused her learning speed to slow, and it became difficult for her to focus for a long time.
“My brother tutors me and he helps me a
lot with reading, and after I got hit with the
car, I went to Sylvan which helped a lot,”
Jenna said. “English and science are my worst
subjects. English with the reading… Science I
just don’t really like. I’m really good at procrastinating.”
These days, seizures are extremely rare
for Jenna; she hasn’t had one for nearly a year
and a half. She still sees her doctor up in Chicago every six months, just in case, though
her medicine, Devocote, has helped eliminate almost all of the seizures.
“Devocote basically works in a number of
different ways by changing the excitability in
the nerve cells in the brain, thereby preventing seizures,” said Korhman.
Although her seizures are virtually nonexistent, according to Jenna, she still gets
what she calls seizures inside her head.
“It doesn’t feel like anything really,” Jenna
said. “I just kind of blank out sometimes and
stare off in space.”
According to doctor Korhman, those seizures in her head are called absence seizures.
During an absence seizure, you just lose
awareness for a few seconds. It happens to
usually 10 percent of patients who have epilepsy.
Though Jenna’s seizures had taken a huge
effect on her life, she always remained fearless.
“I’ve overcome the seizures;” Jenna said.
“I’ve gotten better at controlling them. I
know there are people around me who know
what to do when I’m having a seizure, so I
don’t need to be afraid.”
Jenna’s mom disagrees, and says that it
is kind of impossible to master seizures, and
control them. The real mastery is knowing
the signs of a seizure, and being able to do
whatever needs to be done in preventing and
caring for them.
“I am very proud of her,” Nancy said. “[Her
overcoming of seizures] is a combination of
the medicine she is on that controls the seizures, but her attitude and high activity level
(playing soccer) helps a bunch. She has never
had an attitude of “why me” or felt like she
was just going to lay down and let epilepsy
beat her.”

SPREAD

SPREAD

04-04-11

issue 13

Sharing Their Skills
Students learn to work together in Social Skills class

ChloeStradinger
As the two students stand in front of the class,
they begin reading what they’ve written on the
piece of orange construction paper.
“PROS: good small talk and we were there on
time. CONS: be more quiet during the movie and
organize rides home,” says one of them.
The students and student leaders clap for the
people who have completed their stepping out
project, where they went to the movie theaters
without their parents to practice a social situation with a friend.
Even though this may seem like an easy feat
for some people, as Social Skills teacher Maureen
Johnson pointed out, “something that’s so small
to an average person is such a huge deal to someone else.”

***

The Social Skills class was brought to East
four years ago by a past transition specialist Julie
Paradise. It’s modeled after the class Interpersonal
Skills at SM South. The purpose of Social Skills is
to bring together regular education students and
special education student leaders to discuss social
skills and practice them in a comfortable, everyday environment.
There are 10 student leaders in the class of 35.
To apply for social skills, applicants first fill out
a questionnaire with questions like “How do you
see diversity?” and “How would you handle this
situation?”. Then, there’s an interview with the
teachers where they ask about things like your
comfort level and assertiveness.
Every year about 15-20 students apply for a student leader position, and most of the applicants

are accepted. Johnson stresses the importance of
student leaders in the classroom.
“An adult speaking to a high school student
about something that has to do with social skills
is not as meaningful [coming from] as a peer who
they see as being popular or cool,” Johnson said.
On Monday of every week, student leaders
turn in journals full of notes with observations or
questions they have about the prior week’s class
periods. Things like asking for advice on how to
handle a situation with a student or suggestions
for topics to be discussed in class are things that
teachers often see in the journals.
Another assignment that students and student
leaders have are “stepping out projects”. The purpose of the project is to do a social activity with
a classmate outside of school such as getting ice
cream or going to the movie theaters. Next, the
classmates make a poster about their experience,
noting pros and cons of their activity such as good
table manners or punctuality, and present it to the
class.
Even though there are similar classes around
the district, Johnson said the lesson plans are all
different.
“The hardest part is that there’s really no textbook for social skills. It’s really an abstract concept which, for students, is a hard concept anyways,” Johnson said.
Since there are no books the students can read
to learn social skills, every class period presents
completely different topics and situations. On
an average day, the teachers bring up a topic that
they feel needs to be covered for an in-depth conversation; anything from table manners to per-

sonal hygiene to effective decision making are
discussed in the classroom.
The class sits in a big circle promoting a casual
and open environment. While some students
contribute to the conversation more than others, the teachers try to stay away from interfering
with the flow of the conversation. Instead, they
guide the conversation with questions and hypothetical situations while the students are the
“conductors.”
After this part of class, the students break for
second lunch. Lunchroom monitor Chip Sherman has observed the class during his shift.
“I just thought that was so cool seeing those
kids helping them; everything from helping them
eat and cut their meat or just talking to them and
being their friend,” Sherman said.
When the students return from lunch, they
have a different topic. The teaching of this topic
often involves a role-play, which is one of senior student leader Madison Haverty’s favorite
activities. Around Homecoming time this year,
students did a role-play of how to act during a
date, complete with how to stay composed while
you’re picking up you’re date and how to be respectful when meeting parents.
“It was pretty informative to everyone in the
class about manners that are required, and how to
be respectful, and eye contact and having a good
hand shake,” Haverty said.
Another way the class has practiced their social skills is during “Restaurant Month.” The purpose of Restaurant Month is to practice table manners, money managing skills and small talking in
a public setting. They chose Planet Sub, BRGR,

and Waldo Pizza as places to practice their restaurant skills, because each place has a different setting and atmosphere.
While Social Skills does fun activities like Restaurant Month, the class is still a learning experience and challenging for both students and student leaders.
“The biggest challenge is making sure that I’m
equal with the amount of time I spend with each
kid and just making sure that I’m always branching out to different kids,” Haverty said.
Johnson emphasizes the importance of practicing social skills outside of school.
A program that meets outside of school and
includes students with and without disabilities is
Pack of PALS. The name is an acronym for “Pack
of Positive Attitude Legion of Support.” Though
it’s technically not an East program, many of the
students and student leaders in Social Skills are a
part of this program.
The pals and peers meet about once a month to
do an activity like dinner and a movie or attending a JV basketball game.
According to PALS Vice President of Communications Betsy Blessen, PALS is a program that
brings together kids with and without social
skills.
“The mission is to have kids that go to East be
able to interact with kids in social skills to do normal activities that kids get to do outside of school
like go to games or go to the play,” Blessen said.
Freshman Mitchell Earley is a student in Social
Skills and also a member of Pack of PALS. While
he likes the class Social Skills, he really looks forward to PALS events. His favorite event is to go to

Inside and Out theClassroom
of

March was “Restaurant
Month” so the group
would go to various restaurants like BRGR or
Waldo Pizza. They would
be able to practice interacting with each other
outside the classroom and
ordering in different ways.

three

Pack of Pals is an organization linked with Social
Skills that gathers regular and special education
students together to do
activities like see movies
or go to school dances.
It helps students widen
their social circle.

PACK OF PALS

two

LUNCH

The class will pick a topic
such as rights and responsibilities and have an open
discussion.
Sometimes
the class will utilize roleplaying like pretending to
meet a date’s parents in
order to practice their social skills.

PRACTICE

one

LindseyHartnett

Q&A

Lane Sturgeon

with

16

former Social Skills student

Why is it important for kids to
have access to Social Skills? So
that way we can learn to communicate with more people and meet
new friends. It helps not just with
school but out in the community,
too. Before, I didn’t really know
how to talk to people all that well.

Power Play. Mitchell’s mother, Teresa Earley, suspects Mitchell likes PALS so much because he gets
to be independent.
“I’m always taking him skating or to the movies or out to dinner. So this way he gets to go out
with friends without me, and he really enjoys
that,” Teresa said.
Some of the pals have graduated from East and
moved on to and even past Broadmoor Technical
Center, but stayed a part of the program.
Former Social Skills class student and Pack of
PALS member Lane Sturgeon graduated from the
Broadmoor service last year. Sturgeon took the
class Social Skills the first year it was offered. Her
goal was to make new friends with kids without
disabilities.
“They brought in kids that didn’t have disabilities into the classroom and they got to interact
with us and it helped us out a lot,” Sturgeon said.
After Sturgeon graduated from East, she moved
on to Broadmoor.
Sturgeon said being in the class Social Skills
was “beneficial” to transitioning to Broadmoor
because the teachers told the students about the
Broadmoor service, letting them know it was an
option for available for everyone.
Since she’s left Broadmoor, Sturgeon is cooking more often, learning how to drive, and looking for a job at a crafts store.
“My parents see a different side of me now,”
Sturgeon said. “They see me more communicating now. . .I’ve grown out of my little cocoon that
I kept myself in . . . I grew out of it through social
skills and pals.”

How do the student leaders enrich the class? Well when I was
going to East, we didn’t have student leaders. But I think that it
would have made it a lot easier
for people to understand us and
more special ed kids would’ve
been nominated for like, Homecoming king and stuff.
What is Pack of Pals like for you?
For the last five years, Pack of Pals
has been awesome. I’m just so
grateful for it because it’s such a
unique program. I have the best
five pals. Emily Kerr is my favorite
one in the world; she came to my
show and cheered me on and it
was just really, really special.
What’s your favorite thing to do
with Pack of Pals? I like most of

them except roller skating, because I’m really bad at that. Most
of all I just like to make friends, like
I’ve made over 100 friends.
So what are you doing now? Social Skills introduced me to the
Broadmoor transition services.
We started a Social Skills class
there but it wasn’t as fun. We had
to write a lot of papers and stuff
like that. But I’m working on getting my driver’s license right now;
that’s really exciting. And I’m
looking for a job! Probably at Hobby Lobby because I love crafts.
I’m also searching for my birth
parents with my mom. That’s one
thing, I have the courage to do
that because of Social Skills class.

all photos by GrantKendall
Reading off of a menu during a class field trip at BRGR, senior CC Creidenberg, far above, discusses with a classmate what he wants to order. “I really enjoyed going to lunch. Going with
Social Skills is great because not only is the lunch good but you get to see everyone practice
the manners and skills we learn during the class,” Creidenberg said.
Senior William Olson, above,
places his order with the
waiter at BRGR during one
of the Social Skill’s class outings. Olson said he really enjoyed his hamburger and had
a good experience at BRGR.

Freshman Eric Morgan, above right, plays Connect Four
during “game time” on Friday after lunch. “Me and [my
friend] were trying to build a sailboat out of Connect
Fours,” Morgan said.
Junior Kerri Ricketts, above left, reaches for a three-way
high five. “It’s a way for students to know different kinds
of kids. We’ve all become really close recently,” Ricketts
said. Ricketts has been a part of the class for two years.

A Quick Look at

Social Skills
Key
Social Skills
student
leader
Social Skills
student

17

SPREAD

SPREAD

04-04-11

issue 13

Sharing Their Skills
Students learn to work together in Social Skills class

ChloeStradinger
As the two students stand in front of the class,
they begin reading what they’ve written on the
piece of orange construction paper.
“PROS: good small talk and we were there on
time. CONS: be more quiet during the movie and
organize rides home,” says one of them.
The students and student leaders clap for the
people who have completed their stepping out
project, where they went to the movie theaters
without their parents to practice a social situation with a friend.
Even though this may seem like an easy feat
for some people, as Social Skills teacher Maureen
Johnson pointed out, “something that’s so small
to an average person is such a huge deal to someone else.”

***

The Social Skills class was brought to East
four years ago by a past transition specialist Julie
Paradise. It’s modeled after the class Interpersonal
Skills at SM South. The purpose of Social Skills is
to bring together regular education students and
special education student leaders to discuss social
skills and practice them in a comfortable, everyday environment.
There are 10 student leaders in the class of 35.
To apply for social skills, applicants first fill out
a questionnaire with questions like “How do you
see diversity?” and “How would you handle this
situation?”. Then, there’s an interview with the
teachers where they ask about things like your
comfort level and assertiveness.
Every year about 15-20 students apply for a student leader position, and most of the applicants

are accepted. Johnson stresses the importance of
student leaders in the classroom.
“An adult speaking to a high school student
about something that has to do with social skills
is not as meaningful [coming from] as a peer who
they see as being popular or cool,” Johnson said.
On Monday of every week, student leaders
turn in journals full of notes with observations or
questions they have about the prior week’s class
periods. Things like asking for advice on how to
handle a situation with a student or suggestions
for topics to be discussed in class are things that
teachers often see in the journals.
Another assignment that students and student
leaders have are “stepping out projects”. The purpose of the project is to do a social activity with
a classmate outside of school such as getting ice
cream or going to the movie theaters. Next, the
classmates make a poster about their experience,
noting pros and cons of their activity such as good
table manners or punctuality, and present it to the
class.
Even though there are similar classes around
the district, Johnson said the lesson plans are all
different.
“The hardest part is that there’s really no textbook for social skills. It’s really an abstract concept which, for students, is a hard concept anyways,” Johnson said.
Since there are no books the students can read
to learn social skills, every class period presents
completely different topics and situations. On
an average day, the teachers bring up a topic that
they feel needs to be covered for an in-depth conversation; anything from table manners to per-

sonal hygiene to effective decision making are
discussed in the classroom.
The class sits in a big circle promoting a casual
and open environment. While some students
contribute to the conversation more than others, the teachers try to stay away from interfering
with the flow of the conversation. Instead, they
guide the conversation with questions and hypothetical situations while the students are the
“conductors.”
After this part of class, the students break for
second lunch. Lunchroom monitor Chip Sherman has observed the class during his shift.
“I just thought that was so cool seeing those
kids helping them; everything from helping them
eat and cut their meat or just talking to them and
being their friend,” Sherman said.
When the students return from lunch, they
have a different topic. The teaching of this topic
often involves a role-play, which is one of senior student leader Madison Haverty’s favorite
activities. Around Homecoming time this year,
students did a role-play of how to act during a
date, complete with how to stay composed while
you’re picking up you’re date and how to be respectful when meeting parents.
“It was pretty informative to everyone in the
class about manners that are required, and how to
be respectful, and eye contact and having a good
hand shake,” Haverty said.
Another way the class has practiced their social skills is during “Restaurant Month.” The purpose of Restaurant Month is to practice table manners, money managing skills and small talking in
a public setting. They chose Planet Sub, BRGR,

and Waldo Pizza as places to practice their restaurant skills, because each place has a different setting and atmosphere.
While Social Skills does fun activities like Restaurant Month, the class is still a learning experience and challenging for both students and student leaders.
“The biggest challenge is making sure that I’m
equal with the amount of time I spend with each
kid and just making sure that I’m always branching out to different kids,” Haverty said.
Johnson emphasizes the importance of practicing social skills outside of school.
A program that meets outside of school and
includes students with and without disabilities is
Pack of PALS. The name is an acronym for “Pack
of Positive Attitude Legion of Support.” Though
it’s technically not an East program, many of the
students and student leaders in Social Skills are a
part of this program.
The pals and peers meet about once a month to
do an activity like dinner and a movie or attending a JV basketball game.
According to PALS Vice President of Communications Betsy Blessen, PALS is a program that
brings together kids with and without social
skills.
“The mission is to have kids that go to East be
able to interact with kids in social skills to do normal activities that kids get to do outside of school
like go to games or go to the play,” Blessen said.
Freshman Mitchell Earley is a student in Social
Skills and also a member of Pack of PALS. While
he likes the class Social Skills, he really looks forward to PALS events. His favorite event is to go to

Inside and Out theClassroom
of

March was “Restaurant
Month” so the group
would go to various restaurants like BRGR or
Waldo Pizza. They would
be able to practice interacting with each other
outside the classroom and
ordering in different ways.

three

Pack of Pals is an organization linked with Social
Skills that gathers regular and special education
students together to do
activities like see movies
or go to school dances.
It helps students widen
their social circle.

PACK OF PALS

two

LUNCH

The class will pick a topic
such as rights and responsibilities and have an open
discussion.
Sometimes
the class will utilize roleplaying like pretending to
meet a date’s parents in
order to practice their social skills.

PRACTICE

one

LindseyHartnett

Q&A

Lane Sturgeon

with

16

former Social Skills student

Why is it important for kids to
have access to Social Skills? So
that way we can learn to communicate with more people and meet
new friends. It helps not just with
school but out in the community,
too. Before, I didn’t really know
how to talk to people all that well.

Power Play. Mitchell’s mother, Teresa Earley, suspects Mitchell likes PALS so much because he gets
to be independent.
“I’m always taking him skating or to the movies or out to dinner. So this way he gets to go out
with friends without me, and he really enjoys
that,” Teresa said.
Some of the pals have graduated from East and
moved on to and even past Broadmoor Technical
Center, but stayed a part of the program.
Former Social Skills class student and Pack of
PALS member Lane Sturgeon graduated from the
Broadmoor service last year. Sturgeon took the
class Social Skills the first year it was offered. Her
goal was to make new friends with kids without
disabilities.
“They brought in kids that didn’t have disabilities into the classroom and they got to interact
with us and it helped us out a lot,” Sturgeon said.
After Sturgeon graduated from East, she moved
on to Broadmoor.
Sturgeon said being in the class Social Skills
was “beneficial” to transitioning to Broadmoor
because the teachers told the students about the
Broadmoor service, letting them know it was an
option for available for everyone.
Since she’s left Broadmoor, Sturgeon is cooking more often, learning how to drive, and looking for a job at a crafts store.
“My parents see a different side of me now,”
Sturgeon said. “They see me more communicating now. . .I’ve grown out of my little cocoon that
I kept myself in . . . I grew out of it through social
skills and pals.”

How do the student leaders enrich the class? Well when I was
going to East, we didn’t have student leaders. But I think that it
would have made it a lot easier
for people to understand us and
more special ed kids would’ve
been nominated for like, Homecoming king and stuff.
What is Pack of Pals like for you?
For the last five years, Pack of Pals
has been awesome. I’m just so
grateful for it because it’s such a
unique program. I have the best
five pals. Emily Kerr is my favorite
one in the world; she came to my
show and cheered me on and it
was just really, really special.
What’s your favorite thing to do
with Pack of Pals? I like most of

them except roller skating, because I’m really bad at that. Most
of all I just like to make friends, like
I’ve made over 100 friends.
So what are you doing now? Social Skills introduced me to the
Broadmoor transition services.
We started a Social Skills class
there but it wasn’t as fun. We had
to write a lot of papers and stuff
like that. But I’m working on getting my driver’s license right now;
that’s really exciting. And I’m
looking for a job! Probably at Hobby Lobby because I love crafts.
I’m also searching for my birth
parents with my mom. That’s one
thing, I have the courage to do
that because of Social Skills class.

all photos by GrantKendall
Reading off of a menu during a class field trip at BRGR, senior CC Creidenberg, far above, discusses with a classmate what he wants to order. “I really enjoyed going to lunch. Going with
Social Skills is great because not only is the lunch good but you get to see everyone practice
the manners and skills we learn during the class,” Creidenberg said.
Senior William Olson, above,
places his order with the
waiter at BRGR during one
of the Social Skill’s class outings. Olson said he really enjoyed his hamburger and had
a good experience at BRGR.

Freshman Eric Morgan, above right, plays Connect Four
during “game time” on Friday after lunch. “Me and [my
friend] were trying to build a sailboat out of Connect
Fours,” Morgan said.
Junior Kerri Ricketts, above left, reaches for a three-way
high five. “It’s a way for students to know different kinds
of kids. We’ve all become really close recently,” Ricketts
said. Ricketts has been a part of the class for two years.

A Quick Look at

Social Skills
Key
Social Skills
student
leader
Social Skills
student

17

18

S

FEATURES

04-04-11

enior Polly Mytinger
steps out onto the golf
course. I can do this, she
thinks as she prepares to
hit a golf ball while watching Senior
Cole Turner demonstrate what to do.
“[He] swung back and knocked me
on the head,” Mytinger said. “It was
just one of those classic moments
where you can’t not laugh.”
Turner and Mytinger were two
of the 10 East seniors who went on
a camping trip to Pomona, KS over
spring break. While there, they spent
some time frog-hunting and naming
themselves after characters from “Lord
of the Flies.”
Having recently been in an accident, Turner had just gotten out of surgery when they left, and according to
Senior Emily Collins, he was “out of it.”
Collins said that since his family was
providing most of the camping materials, Turner had a lot of rules: they
could only use phones to call home,
they always had to close the door to

the trailer and they couldn’t use cameras except for when they were on nature walks.
“[One of the rules] was that we
couldn’t eat his baby food,” Collins
said. “He broke his face before we went
and he couldn’t eat [real] food.”
For Collins, the tournament they
made up, “The Pomona Games,” was
the highlight of the trip. Every time
the group went camping, they participated in events such as throwing
sticks, skipping stones, building structures out of rocks and lighting sticks
on fire. At night, Mytinger enjoyed just
spending time with the girls. They had
their own trailer, and they gossiped
about their first kisses. But having to
go to the bathroom in the middle of
the night was an obstacle.
“We held it,” Mytinger said. “It was
dark and … it was just freaky.”
They shared a lot of great memories
and they plan to go back again between
the last day of school and graduation.

J

unior Devery North walks down a
street with a group of kids in La Romana in the Dominican Republic. Some
are local children from the community, some are members of the Village Presbyterian
church and still others are workers from the construction site. Hand in hand, they all make their
way to the houses that the kids live in.
“Their homes are a nest, literally,” North said.
“They are pieces that they have collected to make
a structure that resembles a house.”
North was one of around 17 East students on
this trip, which is taken every year by the youth
group. They go to work on building a school and
offer medical help in the community.
“When we were building the school there
were all these kids around us and we would build
relationships with them and talk to them,” junior
Carolyn Welter said.
They played with the kids during their breaks,
and Welter enjoyed hanging out with a boy she
nicknamed “Spiderman” because he was always
climbing on things.
Since most of the people who went on the trip
are in Spanish classes, they could communicate a
little bit with the kids. But North said even then
the language barrier wasn’t an obstacle. She had

photo courtesy of KikiSykes

fun playing with a young boy named Alexis. One
day, when they were working in an assembly line
lifting cement buckets, he started laughing at her
because she was covered from head to toe in cement. She tried to get him back for teasing her.
“I started to hug him, but he ran away,” North
said. “So I chased him around for a bit.”
When it was time to leave, everyone gathered
to say a prayer for the work they had done there.
North said that she was sad to leave because she
won’t be able to go on the trip again next year, so
she’ll never see the kids again.
“These people have hope,” North said. “And
they have every right to hold on to that hope.”

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

POMONA, KS

DESTINATION:
SPRINGBREAK

students share about their spring break trips

PARIS, FRANCE

KimHoedel

VanessaDaves

S

enior Paige Gundelfinger
spent her time over break
walking the streets of
Paris, with her three best
friends by her side. Gundelfinger, along
with seniors Ariana Sherk, Andrea Zecy
and Alissa Pollack spent a week in Paris
with Sherk’s parents. The Sherk family
was willing to bring all four girls along
with them because they’ve all been best
friends since their freshman year. Staying at a small boutique hotel in the middle of local shops gave the girls a chance
to experience the local color as opposed
to the commercial, “touristy” side of the famous city.
One of the girls’ favorite things to do was
to go out in the evening to visit local hot
spots and enjoy Paris’s thriving night life.
One night, the girls visited a club under the
Alexander III bridge and got the opportunity
to meet some of the locals.
“The guys were really funny,” Gundelfinger said. “Because they didn’t know any English, so it was really funny to try and talk to
them.”
Gundelfinger enjoyed how peaceful and
quiet the city seemed, not to mention beau-

tiful. Her favorite place in Paris was Sacre
Coeur, a famous cathedral that overlooks
the city. The view was what fascinated Gundelfinger the most, “When you go out and
walk around, it is so pretty,” Gundelfinger
said. “Everything catches your eye and it is
just so detailed.”
Riding the Metro around the city, dining
at local cafés, and staring off the top of the
Eiffel Tower made her trip to Paris Gundelfinger’s best spring break to date.
“It was the most amazing trip,” Gundelfinger said. “I’m so happy I got to experience it
with my best friends.”

NEW YORK CITY

S

ophomores Annie Sullivan
and AJ Orth’s Spring Break
trip to New York together
began with a two-day train
ride where their main form of entertainment was people watching. A little girl
ran back and forth with a crazed look in
her eye and chocolate dried to her face,
dodging the middle-aged woman doing
yoga in the middle of the train aisles,
who stood in the way of the lonely bartender who continuously hi-jacked the
train intercom begging people to buy
his Bloody Marys––only when the train
conductor herself wasn’t speaking over
the intercom, trying to entertain the
passengers with her nonstop, poorlythought-out jokes.
“‘We are coming in to Gettysburg!
The Burgs of Getty! Getty! Getty! Getty!
Gettysburg!’” Orth said, mimicking their
train conductor, Andrea.
While in New York, Sullivan and
Orth were able to find where “30 Rock”
was being filmed that week from a website, and ended up going down to the set
that was about 10 blocks from where
the two and Sullivan’s parents were stay-

ing. Sullivan and Orth waited outside of
Tina Fey’s trailer for a good three hours,
until she finally came out to meet them.
“We talked about the weather and
she was eating apples, so we talked
about that, and then as she was leaving
AJ blurted, ‘I love Mean Girls!” Sullivan
said.
As if meeting their all time idol Tina
Fey wasn’t enough, Sullivan and Orth
also met her co-star Alec Baldwin on accident while walking home from dinner
one night.
Orth and Sullivan spent most of their
time seeing different shows on and off
Broadway, which, as active members of
the SME Theater Department, interested them the most. They were inspired
by the people who have succeeded in
New York doing what they love. After
seeing Central Park, visiting the Museum of Natural History, fulfilling the
fantasy of ordering a hot dog from a hot
dog vendor and meeting their all-time
idol, the two sophomore’s trip can be
described in one short sentence:
“Together,” Orth said, “we did it.”

FEATURES
issue 13

BACK IN THE
CLASSROOM

Losey uses a pillow in the desk she
sits in as she teaches class to ease
her lingering back pain.

Madame Losey returns to teaching after six
weeks of recovery from injuries sustained in fall
EmilyKerr

It all happened so quickly. One minute, Madame Laure
Losey was walking into school, and the next she was lying on
the cold cement, dazed and confused. She assured the people
gathered around her that she could get up and continue with
her day.
Office secretary Gayle O’Grady was walking in front of her
and saw the fall happen.
“I ran back to her, which probably wasn’t a smart idea because it was kind of slick,” O’Grady said. “ We called the nurse
and she brought a wheelchair, but she really just wanted to
get up. She is very tough.”
Losey didn’t realize the seriousness of her fall. She didn’t
realize she had broken five ribs and punctured a lung. The
only thing on her mind was the test that she had to give in
less than an hour.
Ignoring the pain, she went upstairs to the fifth floor and
was determined to give the eight sentence dictation test to
her French 3 class. But she couldn’t make it through. By sentence seven, she was short of breath and tired.
“I knew that the being sleepy part wasn’t good because
of an experience with [another heart condition called] supraventricular tachycardia,” Losey said. “But my body had to
have been in some type of shock because nobody could believe I lasted even that long.”
Losey was then admitted to the hospital. In addition to
the broken ribs and punctured lung, her lung was partially
collapsed. The doctors made a decision to wait to see if it
would inflate. It didn’t. One chest tube, many doses of narcotics and six days later, she was sent home for a long road of
recovery.
Fast forward through six weeks of painful recovery to
Losey’s return to school. Her first day back was long and exhausting, filled with struggles with everyday things such as
tying a shoe or entering grades. An accidental cough or laugh

PUSHING THROUGH THE PAIN
Jan 28 at 6:55 a.m.

Madame Losey slips and
falls on ice in the East parking lot

19

all photos by SaraBaumann

doubled her over in pain. But for Losey, it was worth it. As
always, her students came first.
“My first day back was emotionally rewarding because
my students were so welcoming,” Losey said. “I got hugs and I
had people come that didn’t even have me that day.”
French 6 student and co-president of FNHS Lauren Stanley was elated when Losey finally returned to class.
“It’s so good to have her back,” Stanley said. “We all
clapped when she walked back in the classroom for the first
time.”
Because of the close relationships Losey has built with her
students, it is no surprise that they formed a great support
system. Constant texts, emails and homemade cards flooded
her inbox asking how she was doing while she was gone.
Stanley attributes Losey’s closeness with her students to her
undying commitment to them.
“She cares so much more about the students than their
grade in her class,” Stanley said. “She will stay for an hour after school if you need help with something. She really wants
you to understand French and learn French to better yourself
and understand other cultures.”
In addition to the encouragement received from the students, Losey has also seen an outpouring of support from her
co-workers. On top of an overwhelming amount of flowers
and phone calls, they also provided her with home cooked
meals.
“It was incredible because coming from France you don’t
see that kind of support,” Losey said. “It is special to the U.S.
and particularly this part of the country. I’m surrounded by
wonderful people.”
Losey has also received reassurance that the slippery sidewalks will be taken care of. In order to make sure a fall like
this doesn’t happen again, there is a new system of ice prevention being implemented. Losey’s fall raised the question

that has risen multiple times: how to deal with the snow effectively. According to Dr. Krawitz, the system was set up the
day after her fall.
“The school district started treating the lots at 3 a.m. in the
morning before anyone arrived,” Krawitz said. “They started
to re-salt and sand this area so that it would have at least two
or three hours of working time.
With the topography of the land, there is no permanent
solution to deal with the slippery sidewalks. The only thing
they can do is work to maintain the amount of ice on the
ground.
“This new system is going to have to be a standing procedure from this point forward,” Krawitz said.
Although she has received an incredible amount of support and reassurance from students and coworkers, this journey has been filled with equal amounts of hardship. While
Losey remained at home, she still had to remain in the picture somewhat for the students. Despite doctor’s warnings
not to exert herself, Losey proceeded to create lesson plans for
the substitute, grade compositions and communicate with
her students about their progress. She pushed through the
pain that came with bending over to grade and the exhaustion that came with reading long works. She was determined
that her students would not fall behind.
“Just because I get sick doesn’t mean the AP or IB tests are
going to wait six weeks,” Losey said. “My curriculum will stay
the same. We will be ready.”
This persistent attitude is something that Losey consistently demonstrates. French 4 student Marston Fries sees this
as being beneficial to their learning.
“She is definitely not lenient on grading and she makes
the tests hard but she just expects a lot out of us,” Fries said.
“But that is good because it pushes us.”

A look at the progression of Losey’s injury

Jan 28 at 7:40 a.m.

Losey tries to give a dictation
test to French 5 class, but
soon is out of breath.

Jan 28 at 9:45 a.m.

Losey is admitted to the
hospital with broken ribs and
a partially collapsed lung.

Feb 3-March 9

For six weeks, Losey went
through painful recovery at
home.

March 10

On Losey’s first day back at
East, everyday tasks like typing in grades were tiring.

20

FEATURES

04-04-11

-isClaireWahrer

CarolineCreidenberg

Sophomore Katherine Higdon sits down in her overcrowded Chemistry I class. Every desk is filled and fellow
sophomore classmate Rachel Kephart is forced to sit on a stool
in place of a desk. Arrangements are made for another desk to
be brought in the next class period to accommodate for the
class of 30-plus students.
A week goes by. The stool is no longer being used, and the
extra desk is no longer needed.
According to Chemistry teacher Steve Appier, 10 students
in his classes have dropped this year. Associate Principal
Heather Royce said approximately five percent of the course’s
original 115 students dropped because the course was too rigorous. An average honors class like sophomore English Honors has a drop rate of around three percent.
Junior Patrick Frazell dropped the course at semester because of the rigor of the course. Frazell found the class challenging because of the overall work load and the amount of
new material the class would learn every single day.
“I had gotten to the point where I was so lost with the material that I felt like I could never catch up,” Frazell said.
Ever since Appier started teaching at East, students have
been on and off complaining about Chemistry and wanting it
to be an honors course, and teachers have fought back.
According to Betsy Regan, SMSD Director of Curriculum
and instruction, the discussion of changing course credit
begins with the district curriculum council for that subject
identifying a need and/or making a recommendation to her
department.
In the past seven years, the vote to make Chemistry I an
honors course has come to her attention three different times.
After that, she involves the directors of the course. There is

Some students believe Chemistry
should count as an honors course

one teacher representative from each school, and Chemistry
I teacher Coleman Ogdon is the teacher from East. He explained that each time it has come up, the directors voted zero
to five in favor of changing the course. The last vote took place
at the end of last semester.
“Why is an honors section needed?” Regan said. “The
course content for Chemistry I is rigorous. Is there a need for
a more advanced level of this course?”
“I’m just afraid that if we adopt Chemistry I Honors, then
it will just become what Chemistry I is right now and regular
Chemistry I will turn into a watered down version of Chemistry I,” Appier said.
Higdon believes she should be getting honors credit for
taking the course, but she understands Appier’s perspective.
“It’s a hard subject so I’m sure it’s hard to dumb it down,”
Higdon said.
Frazell also feels that he should have been getting honors
credit for the class while he was enrolled first semester. He
also believes that if he would have been in regular Chemistry
he would not have dropped. Frazell wouldn’t choose to take
the honors level course if it was offered.
“Even at the regular course level I didn’t succeed, so why
would I take honors?” Frazell said.
Higdon is currently enrolled in all honors courses and feels
that Chemistry is just as hard, if not harder than her honors
classes.
“The fact that we don’t have that much time it makes it
hard and we kind of have to teach ourselves sometimes,” Higdon said.
The night before the block day she has Chemistry, Hidgon
said she has around three hours of homework total, and about

an hour and a half of it is Chemistry.
“I would say if they are spending more than 30 minutes
on their homework a night [an hour per block night], then
they are doing too much or they’re not focusing.” Chemistry
teacher Jeremy Higgins said.
It’s not just the homework load that makes the class difficult for most students, though, the material and subject matter is hard. Higgins said that it can be difficult for some kids to
grasp the material.
“Kids like to wrap their hands around something and see
something and visually know and say, ‘Oh, I’ve seen that before’,” Higgins said, “but in Chem you can’t do that because
you’re talking about things that are so small.”
All four Chemistry teachers at East are against making
Chemistry I an honors course, because there is no way to
make it easier. Making it an honors class would “water down”
the material for the regular class. Appier said the course has
already become less rigorous throughout the years.
“If you were to bring in a student who had been in my class
the first year I was here and bring them into our Chem class
today, they would think ‘oh this is not the same as we did,’”
Appier said.
As of now, Chemistry I will not become an honors course,
due to a vote that took place last semester and the Chemistry
teachers at East are all in favor of this.
“It’s a rigorous course, yes, but at the same point it’s an elective course that kids have the option of taking,” Higgins said,
“The fact that it’s an upper-level science elective, I don’t think
it needs to be an honors credit at all. If we make it an honors
class, then what does our regular Chemistry I become?”

How hard is Chemistry?

Results from a survey of 110 sophomores, juniors and seniors
25
Should Chemistry be an
45
percent
of
honors course?
20
students said 15

35%

65%

NO

YES

that
Chemistry was
their hardest
class.

10
5
0

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Level of difficulty (10 is
the hardest)

Have you ever taken
Chemistry?

81
students
said YES

MIXED
20 04-04-11

Mixed

{the page about life}

Coffee Connoisseurs
The anatomy of a perfect drink

Hey It’s Ok
If you find that your snooze button is barely readable
from overuse. Who likes mornings anyways?
If your bracket picks were soley based off
the coolness factor of their mascot. With an
Argentian cowboy (the Gauchos) as a mascot,
UCSB just screams failure.
If your definition of successful spring cleaning consists
of managing to close your closet door on all of your
junk.
If you secretly enjoy when Rebecca Black’s “Friday” comes on Mix 93.3. Fun! Fun! Fun!
If you are counting down the days until QuikTrip has
summer drink prices. 69 cent slurpies? Yes please.

to the proud
winners of the

2011
Spring

Break
Photo
Contest

To view the photo gallery
of the other submissions
go to smeharbinger.net

By #s
17
the

Congratulations

-the average number of
minutes between the birth
of the 1st and 2nd twin

18-22

-the percentage
of twins that are left handed

100,000,000
the number of twins in the
world

30

-the age that a women becomes more likely to
conceive twins
sources: www.twinsrealm.com,
www.twinsmagazine.com

Seniors Cormac O’Connor and
Henry Foster in Madrid, Spain

CoffeeShop
playlist

Mellow songs you can
sit back and sip to

1Steal My Kisses
Ben Harper
2Swallowed in the
Sea Coldplay

5Nobody’s You
Matt Wertz

Madeline Goss

Lauren Stanley
Ingredients

Ingredients
2 pumps
creamer
2 packets
of sugar

3Moving Backwards
Ben Rector
4The Calculation
Regina Spektor

Mac Dolliver

Roast
French
Vanilla

“I didn’t have money on
Tuesday for coffee. It
was the most ridiculous
day of my life because
I couldn’t stay awake in
class. ”

1 packet of
Splenda
Ingredients
3 scoops
of cream

Roast
Signature
Blend

Roast
Signature Blend

“I started getting Frappuccinos when I was
13 and I started drinking straight up coffee
when I was a freshman.
I need the energy to stay
awake.”

“I usually drink one
cup in the morning
and then one when
I get to school. I
love to get coffee
with my friends at
Hattie’s.”

“We basically understand
exactly what each of us is
thinking. We’re each others
best friends.” -Kate Kulaga
“When we go shopping we
have a budget so if we like
something we will buy it
and share it.”-Emily Kulaga
SamBartow

“Usually people
tell us apart by our
shoes, if they can’t
do that then they
can’t tell us apart.”
-Sam Stewart

“The worst part about being
a twin is trying to convince
my mom to side with me,
she always agrees with
Zach.” -Megan Nass

Senior Hannah Roste and friends
in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Sophomore Matti Crabtree in
Tokyo, Japan

2,200
members

of the
Prairie Village
community

Rose

NAILS

913.383.8288
4175 Somerset Dr.
Prairie Village, KS 66208

Manicure

$12

Acrylic Only

Fill-In

$16

WILL
READ
THIS
AD.

Spa Pedicure

$23

Acrylic Only

Full-Set

$27
(White-tip)

E-MAIL
SMEHARBINGER@GMAIL.COM
TO ADVERTISE

A&E

GAME & READY

W

issue 13

23

CLASSIC GAMES

STAFFER PREVIEWS POPULAR VIDEO
GAMES
AndrewSimpson

ith this next installment in the Battlefield
series, producer DICE is aiming
to finally take the action-shooter crown from “Call of Duty.”
Set in the near future as US
military forces continue to police the Middle East, the game
will take you through a 6-hour
in-depth journey to hell and
back as you battle insurgents
and organized militias. In the
multiplayer realm, expect the
usual goodies from DICE: vehicles (tanks, jets, helicopters),

unlocks and perks galore, and
the ability for up to 64 players
from around the world to kill
each other again and again.
Already ahead of COD in
gameplay, DICE kicks it up another notch in the technology
sector, bringing in the latest
graphics engines, compared
to the 7 year-old ones used in
COD games. The only thing better than looking at pretty environments is destroying them,
which is what the new physics
engine DICE is implementing

lets you do.
The bottom line is this:
if you like people running
around with grenade launchers
and 12-year-olds insulting your
mother, buy whatever COD
game Inifinity Ward rushes to
production next. If you enjoy
genuine teamwork, blowing
up buildings, and the prettiest
explosions you have ever seen,
then buy “Battlefield 3” when it
comes out this fall.Iverit, quam
suamdic epotil vit gra tabunum
inclus es C. Gra omprobse ia-

SUPER SMASH BROS.
Besides Mario Kart,
the Super Smash Bros.
series is the essential
party game. Although
SSB Brawl brought the
games to the Wii, Melee
is still the fan favorite
and will remain in many
basements for years to
come.

eagames.com

BATTLEFIELD 3

HYPE

SEQUELS

HYPE

“M

inecraft” is a game
where you mine,
and, well, craft. Each time you
enter a world, it is randomly
generated full of mountain
ranges and oceans, floating
islands and caves, deserts and
forests. But the thing about this
game is that each world is entirely made up of square blocks,
like a world made of legos.
It is then your job to mine
these blocks, craft tools, and
then build whatever you want
anywhere you want with any-

T

his year heralds the return of many franchises
forgotten in the modern era controlled by COD, “Mario Kart”,
and FIFA. First on the list of 2011
sequels is “Gears of War 3”. We
all know you forgot about Gears,
but it’s okay. Just be ready be
ready to spend countless hours
cutting your friends in half with
a chainsaw when it comes out
this Fall. As the alien Reapers
finally descend to destroy all intelligent life in the galaxy, it will
thing you want. You don’t even
need to have this fun all by
yourself––you can join one
of thousands of already existing “Minecraft” communities,
or make a new one with your
friends. In that, the do-whatever-the-heck-you-want factor is
the genius of “Minecraft” that
makes it worthy of this list. It
is a creative playground for the
restless mind, and it only gets
better from there.
Every few months, the independent developer, a man by

be Commander Shepard’s job to
defeat (or maybe join) them in
the action packed and (hopefully) fulfilling and climactic ending to the Mass Effect series in
Mass Effect 3.
In April, Valve will release
the highly anticipated “Portal 2”,
a game that combines the use of
portals to beat puzzles, action,
and nerdy jokes about cake. For
the first time in any Valve game,
Portal 2 features the ability to
play two player co-op to face

even harder challenges, or just
beat the regular ones faster.
Although the release date is
not yet known, Nintendo plans
on making a full comeback into
modern gaming with the release
of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Wii, which
will finally give you the ability to
completely control your sword
swings as you save Hyrule once
again.

MINECRAFT

the name of Notch, adds new
content. This content ranges
from an update to make the
lighting prettier, to the addition
of tamable pet dogs to do your
bidding.
The fact that it is also one of
the top 100 bestselling games
of all time, before its official
release, is just another reason
to buy this game. It is only 20
dollars, and it gives an infinite
amount of play time. Simply
put: You. Need. This. Game.
Iverit, quam suamdic epotil vit

CONSOLES

COMPARING POPULAR

GAMING CONSOLES

XBOX 360
Wii
With the majority of games being release just for the 360, it is
essntial in any gamers pad.

Replacing serious gaming with
family fun and waving Wiimotes, Wii’s are great for any
part with lots of people.

Nintendo’s
classic
Legend of Zelda series
began 25 years ago, and
Ocarina of Time is the
game of the series. With
a modern version coming out for the 3DS, Ocarina of TIme will take you
back to your childhood.

GOLDEN EYE 007

HYPE

GAMING

LEGEND OF ZELDA:
OCARINA OF TIME

PS3
Although many people say the
PS3 is the best, a lack of games
and a small online community
do not match their claims.

This James Bond classic defined multiplayer
first person shooters as
we know it: it had different guns, different characters and a whole lot of
cool game modes. Think
of it like the Shakespeare
of video games—it defined the art.
For additional reviews and staff opinions of the latest, cutting edge video
games visit: smeharbinger.net

A&E
24 04-04-11

Insane Action
ZoeBrian

Director of “300,” “Watchman” and “Dawn of the Dead”,
Zack Snyder is known for testosterone heavy films without
much substance. Traditionally, Snyder’s films are full of
senseless killings and clichéd deaths. But Snyder seems to be
taking a step away from male-driven movies with an almost
all female cast and an undertone of girl power in “Sucker
Punch.” Yet Snyder keeps the film interesting with action
scenes and a plot that is captivating at first, but begins to
confuse the audience less that 30 minutes in.
Known only as Baby Doll (Emily Browning), a young
woman falls into the clutches of her stepfather after the
death of her mother pushes her into a deep depression. In order to keep Baby Doll from inheriting her mother’s fortune,
her greedy stepfather (Gerard Plunkett) tosses her into an
insane asylum and schedules a lobotomist (Jon Hamm) to silence her permanently. Baby Doll’s only way to deal with her
tragedy is to imagine herself in an underground burlesque
club where she and other women are kept against their will.
But when Baby Doll dances she finds herself in a sanctuary
where she is able to fight off her demons physically.
When Baby Doll first learns to unlock her hidden world
by dancing, we are transported to an ancient Chinese palace
in the middle of winter. Accordingly, Baby Doll is in a midriff-showing Japanese school-girl uniform, thigh-high socks
and heels. My main qualm with this is that I don’t understand why, if this was her perfect world, she would choose to
be wearing something as ridiculous as this outfit. Along with
that, she fights a trio of robot-monsters, does flips and runs at
full speed, all while wearing three-inch heels. Though this
is far-fetched at best, as the movie went on I found myself
noticing the costumes less and less.

STAR SCALE

STAY AT HOME

‘Sucker Punch’ delivers a confusing, mediocre thriller

As the film continued, the costume choice presented
itself as a symbol of girl power. Just like Baby Doll’s ability
to entrance men with her dance, the outfits are one of the
‘weapons’ in Baby Doll and the other girls’ arsenals. Yet there
is enough danger and girls kicking ass to keep the movie
from becoming boring and preachy.
Once Baby Doll discovers the power she holds she enlists
the help of Rocket (Jena Malone), Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish),
Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Jamie Chung), her
roommates at the asylum/burlesque house, and plans to escape her prison before the lobotomist arrives in five days.
The plot alone is disorienting if someone tries to understand it, but I found myself at a point where I just started
going with it and the movie became much more entertaining. Though it is a dream world within a dream world, there
are far too many metaphors within each world. A bomb in
the fighting dream world is a knife in the burlesque world,
which is a lobotomy in the real world. These metaphors become overused and just plain confusing as we go deeper and
deeper into Baby Doll’s psyche.
While Baby Doll barely says a word in the entire first
act, most of conversation is had by her almost uninteresting soon-to-be teammates Though all are experienced actresses, they obviously weren’t chosen for their acting chops.
Their acting is mediocre at best, but that can’t be completely
blamed on the actresses. Most of the characters were 2-dimensional and had no back story to speak of. Considering
what the girls wear through most of the film, it isn’t a surprise that beauty came before talent in this casting call.
But more beautiful than the actresses is the dream world
Baby Doll finds a home in. The vibrant color scheme con-

RENT IT

WORTH SEEING

The Strokes new album, ‘Angles,’ provides a fresh sound
RainaWeinberg

I can mark the exact moment that I fell in
love with the Strokes.
At the innocent age of 11, in an unfamiliar venue, in an even more unfamiliar scene,
I stood and watched my first concert, The
Strokes performing at the Uptown Theatre.
I loved every minute of it. Following that

moment, I became an avid fan and subsequently have listened to their indie-rock
tunes religiously ever since.
In 2006, The Strokes finished their third
album, “First Impressions of Earth” and after
a five-year hiatus that felt like 10, the New
York fourpiece have come back with their
fourth studio album, “Angles.” Immense relief and the words “Thank god” flooded my
head when it was announced that the group
was continuing to play music together.
The Strokes’ fourth album was to be
marked as that of a “group effort” –– front
man Julian Casablancas would no longer
write every last bit of music that went into
the record. Many fans had mixed feelings
upon hearing this. I personally anticipated
that this would mean less booze-infused
songs about loneliness.
Channeling a Vampire Weekend sound,
the first track, “Maccu Picchu,” delivers a
surprising, but welcome new sound. By the

allmoviephoto.com

trasts with the dreary and almost black and white scenes
in the asylum while the multitude of enemies each have
character. Each fight has a different location whether it be
a dragon’s lair, a moving train or a WWI bunker, and with
every location comes different creatures. I understand having Baby Doll and her team fighting Nazis and dragons, but
when the Orcs showed up right out of “Lord of the Rings” I
was once again confused.
This movie cannot be taken seriously but if you just go
with the flow the film can be a fun, if not confusing, ride.
With a cast full of eye-candy and second-rate actors, a plot
that seems to still be in development and a soundtrack that
adds another dimension, the film has its flaws but manages
to deliver an amusing romp through the psyche.

OSCAR WORTHY

Different ‘Strokes’

time the chorus rolls around, we’re back in
the safe, choppy guitar riffs that every fan
knows and loves. Casablancas’ voice beckons back to classics like “Reptillia” at the end
as he half-yells “life turns to dust.”
The obvious single choice “Under Cover
of Darkness” sends fans back to 2001’s “Is
This It?” You could slip this song between
“Last Night” and “Hard to Explain,” with
no fault or question. “Under Cover of Darkness” personifies the band mates’ idea that
it’s time to move forward as a group. With
lyrics such as “everybody’s singing the same
song for ten years,” fans get the sense that
the band is ready to expand their legacy and
even surpass the timeless love everyone felt
for their first album.
Casablancas’ surrender of creative control shows in side-by-side tracks “Two Kinds
of Happiness” and “You’re So Right.” I’d like
to say I enjoyed these just as much as the rest,
but they ultimately sound like rehashed ver-

sions of older, better Strokes’ songs.
Unsurprisingly, the sound of Casablancas solo album shows up midway through
Angles with “Games.” Its a synth-heavy, 80s
flashback that feels out of place among the
foot-tapping guitar riffs of “Taken for a Fool”
and “Gratisfaction.”
The five-year wait was well worth it.
“Angles” for the most part reaffirms my everlasting love of The Strokes, and I can now
breathe a sigh relief knowing that they are
still here and aren’t cutting their losses like
so many other bands that emerged around
the same time. “Angles” proves to be nothing
close to a last ditch effort to drag out a onceglorious career, but the successful return of
one of indie-rock’s finest.

thestrokes.com

STAR SCALE

EAR PLUGS

RADIO ONLY

ADD TO PLAYLIST

PRESS REPEAT

A&E

issue 13

FAST

ALL JEWELED UP

FACTS

Staffer reviews three different jewelry stores around the Kansas City area

PaigeHess
I am not one to wear designer clothes often, I do not shop on the Plaza every week and I never
spend my free time reading fashion magazines. But even so, that does not mean that I do not have
an appreciation for fashion. Here is my critique of three Kansas City stores for every budget, style
or occasion.

Charming Charlie’s
Charming Charlie is
the one-stop shop
for any kind of accessory you are looking
for. There is a large
selection of jewelry
organized by color
for easy finding. This
store also has a wide
variety of scarves,
bags and all kinds
of inexpensive-yetquality accessories.

T

4401 West 119th Street

Forever 21
Forever 21 not only
has a wide variety of
jewelry for every kind
of style, but it also
has a large clothing
selection that is the
same way. It is filled
from wall-to-wall
with brightly-colored
clothing and various
patterns. This is the
kind of store that you
can go into and find
almost anything you
are looking for.

111 Nichols Road

Tiffany’s & Co.
Tiffany and Co. is
a high-end jewelry
store that is the perfect retailer for purchasing simple and
elegant pieces. Tiffany’s prices start at
$100. Their jewelry
has a very traditional
look, which is great
for everyday wear.

301 Nichols Road

25

CHARMING CHARLIE’S
$12

here is an overwhelming amount of jewelry at
Charming Charlie’s to draw you in: they have
everything you could possibly ask for when
it comes to accessories. From headbands to
scarves to clutches, you are bound to find something
that is your style. As a plus, everything within the store
is organized by color, which helps you easily find exactly
what you are looking for.
Charming Charlie’s has even more of a selection than
Forever 21—it has a variety that is similar to the variety
of Forever 21’s clothes. Although the quality of the jewelry here is better than Forever 21’s selection, it is about
the same price. This inexpensive jewelry looks as if you
paid a high price for elegant looks. They have such a
wide variety, making the store a bit overwhelming. This
is not the place you can not just wander through: you
should definitely have an idea what you are looking for,

U

pbeat and extremely loud mainstream pop
music blares through the speakers and
makes its way out the door, audible on the
plaza streets. Contrary to its intended purpose, this obnoxious music makes me lose almost any
desire to shop.
Forever 21 is divided into sections based off similarities: formal, tees, denim, workout, etc. As I walk
through the array of colors and multi-toned sections,
I notice how there are barely any salespeople in the
store. The accessories section of the store located on
the right hand side of the wall was huge, and every
inch of the room was full with merchandise. I looked
around and was shocked at the variety of the jewelry.
Despite my initial distaste, I had to acknowledge the
fact that this store had items in every color of the
rainbow, and in any possible style you could be looking for: girlie, punk, classy, hipster, you name it. Neck-

TIFFANY’S & CO.
$165

T

or else you will be completely overwhelmed. All of their
non-expensive jewelry is very high quality, so you can
wear it multiple times.
The way the store is set up by color sections, this gives
you many options to pick from. You may have a certain
style in mind to go with an outfit, and then you completely change your mind after looking at the selection. This
jewelry can match a formal dress or dress up a simple
V-neck. I found a pretty large necklace and many pearl
beads, giving off a formal look that turned my dress shirt
into a fashion-forward outfit.
Unfortunately, the high demand creates a huge downside to the store. On Saturdays, they receive such a large
crowd that can leave you waiting through a 20-person
line to check out. Luckily, the prices and the jewelry’s
versatility make it worth the wait.

laces ranging from chokers to those you could layer
and wear long, simple bracelets to intricate cuffs and
earrings that dangle to just metal studs were all under
$20—a steal compared to Tiffany’s. They have such a
large variety that some of their pieces are very odd to
say the least: the pieces with skulls and cross-bones
made me fear the girls who would purchase them.
Some of their bestsellers are the longer necklaces
with beads and repeated designs that can go with anything you throw on. Forever 21 carries silver, gold and
kinds of chains so you can find some kind of jewelry to
match your outfits. Some of my favorite pieces were
the skinny group of bracelets, a.k.a. bangle bracelets,
and long necklaces with beads. I wear my gold bangle
bracelets at least once a week—they go with anything.
This store is a hit-or-miss kind of place. Sometimes
they have adorable items, and sometimes they have
pieces that not even worth the $10.

he iconic little “Tiffany blue” bag sat in the
middle of the table. My five friends’ faces lit
up as they watched me receive their well-chosen gift. “My friends would never,” I thought
to myself. I gently tore open the bag to find the suede
blue pouch. This was real. Gently taking the contents
out, I was amazed. The beautiful silver bow pendant on
the silver chain sparkled more than anything else I had
ever seen. By receiving this sparking silver bow-tie pendant, I grew a giant obsession.
I held open the heavy glass doors of The Tiffany & Co.
store and a petite woman walked out with the same
iconic little bag that I’d gotten from my friends. Immediately, I was greeted by the formally dressed salesman. I could tell that this was not the kind of place that
girls my age regularly shop at, but I disregarded this as
soon as I saw the selection: I was in complete and utter

FOREVER 21
$18

heaven.
I began to look around through the glass display cases.
I recognized some of the pendants and simpler pieces
some high school girls wear. I asked about the prices
and the clients that buy each piece. The salesman said
that the signature initial necklaces and simple pendants are their more “cheap” items that teenage girls
can wear (ranging from $100 to $250). High school
girls may receive these for big occasions, such as a Bat
Mitzvah or Sweet 16 party.
Their jewelry starts at $100 but has a low price-perwear: you could wear it literally everyday for the next
couple of years due to this traditional style. Seeing as
the products are elegant, but still super pricey, this
is a great place to find a present that a group of your
friends can split the price for a birthday present.
GrantHeinlein

SPORTS
26 04-04-11

Making the

Leap

Seniors look to pursue cheering
on the college level
EmmaPennington

Three times a week, seniors Cate Birkenmeier and Heather Nelson go to the gym to practice for their college cheer tryouts with a
workout: stretching and then moving on to practicing their standing back-flips. They always try to ease into working on their harder
stunts, such as flying with a partner.
College cheer isn’t something either girl has dreamed of for
long––Birkenmeier decided she wanted to tryout for cheer at
Kansas State University during the spring of her junior year. She
wanted to be involved in college and be a part of something from
the start. She started to pay closer attention to the cheerleaders at
college games and see them in their front row seats and knew she
wanted to be a part of that.
Birkenmeier thinks cheer will be a great way to meet a new
group of people. The girls say one of the differences between high
school and college cheer is partner stunting, doing stunts and flying with one other yell leader. This main difference is something
that piqued Birkenmeier’s interest into trying out.
“It’s fun to be thrown in the air like that and be able to do cool
things with just one person,” Birkenmeier said. “It interested me
that a guy could hold one person up like that.”
For Nelson, the decision was more complicated.
Nelson had played soccer since kindergarten, and had been on
a club soccer team since she was in third grade. At East, Nelson had
played outside defender for the varsity team since freshman year.
She had received first team all Sunflower League as a sophomore
and honorable mention all Sunflower League for her junior year.
When Nelson made her final decision––that she wanted to try
out for cheer at the University of Missouri––she knew it would be
too difficult to balance that time commitment with playing East
soccer. Nelson said that for soccer she had to be in good “running
shape,” whereas for cheer she needs to have strong abs and back
muscles. She didn’t think she would be able to go from a two hour
soccer practice full of running straight to practicing tumbling and
stunting for cheer tryouts. Making the choice to quit soccer and
try out for college cheer was a difficult decision, though she feels
it was the right one.
“She could play soccer in college if she wanted to, at a lot of
schools,” soccer coach Jamie Kelly said. “She’s so tough and strong,
and she’s very good.”
Birkenmeier and Nelson have both enjoyed high school cheer
and will miss the other girls on their squad.
“It’s been really fun,” Birkenmeier said. “I like cheering at the
games a lot, and it’s really fun to stunt with all the girls.”
Both girls know cheering in college is much different than in
high school: in college, you are expected to be able to do things
like a standing back tuck (standing back-flip) and to know how

to stunt with just one other person. Birkenmeier and Nelson have
been meeting as often as they can to work on stunts and technique.
Twice a week, they meet with a friend from SM Northwest, who
practices flying with them. The two have also hired a private tumbling coach, who helps work on perfecting their techniques three
days a week.
“You have to work a lot harder, you have to be in way better
physical shape,” Birkenmeier said. “I lift weights now for cheer.
Also, a lot of people who cheer in college want to do something
with cheer later on in life––I don’t think I want to.”
Seniors discuss the differences of the enviroments
Holly Thomas, a 2004 East graduate, was a cheerleader for
three years at KSU, and said that she had practices for three hours
at night, Monday through Friday. There were sometimes when
SENIOR HEATHER NELSON
Thomas wished she was out doing other things, but ultimately she
“I’ve always really enjoyed it
enjoyed it.
“You never understand the commitment until you actually do
and I’ve always really liked
it,” Thomas said. “It’s definitely like a little family and it’s a great
the girls but high school
thing to do, but it’s your main focus.”
cheer doesn’t really prepare
Birkenmeier is very anxious about the tryouts, because she
you at all for college cheer.
won’t know anyone there and is unsure of what the tryouts will
College you basically have to
be like.
be
a gymnast and there’s group
“A lot of the girls who tryout for college cheer come from Blue
stunting
in college but it’s more
Valley and Olathe,” Birkenmeier said. “Their cheer is a lot more seof
just
partner
stunting with one
rious, because they have it as a class so they kind of know what to
other guy.”
expect. Coming from Shawnee Mission, I feel like I don’t know.”
Thomas recalls her experience when she tried out at KSU and
remembers it to be very nerve-wracking.
“You walk to the front of the line and they say, ‘throw a standing back tuck,’ or ‘throw the tumbling path of your choice,’ so it’s
SENIOR CATE BIRKENMEIER
really intense,” Thomas said. “Everyone is there watching you and
it’s open to the public so there’s people in the stands watching the
“You have to work a lot harder,
tryouts as well.”
you have to be in way better
Birkenmeier feels like she is doing everything in her power to
physical shape like I lift weights
make the team and will be very disappointed if she doesn’t. Both
now for cheer. A lot of people
girls still plan on attending their respective school, whether they
take it more serious in college,
make it or not. Nelson said that if she does not make the team at
I
mean, obviously. Also a lot
MU, she will know that it is just not meant to be.
of people who cheer in college
“I’ll be embarrassed, but when I want something, I do everywant to do something with cheer
thing that I can to get it,” Nelson said. “So, if I don’t make it then it’s
later on in life. I don’t think I want
just, everything happens for a reason, I guess.”
KSU and MU both hold their tryouts during the last weekend
to do that but like coaching then
in April. Nelson will find out if she made the team the final day
being like a professional cheerof tryouts while Birkenmeier is unsure of when she will find out.
leader, a lakers girl.”
Both girls know they will be ready to do all they can in a few weeks
when it comes time for them to try out.

COLLEGE

VS

HIGH SCHOOL

all photos by DanStewart

SPORTS

issue 13

27

DanielStewart

WHERE
NATIONALS

TAKING IT FROM THE TOP

IN 3 STEPS

Mix of leadership and talent brings drill team success at nationals
MattGannon

A crowd of 17 girls clad in light blue leotards
and sparkly black lace dresses shake nervously
as they stretch slowly across the mat. 30 minutes left. This isn’t like the East gymnasium.
There are no stands full of best friends, cheering
for the highlight of the pep assembly. Instead,
the girls are surrounded by other teams. Teams
who have worked just as hard as them and want
to win just as badly. The girls move to the next
mat, a begin running through their simple
tricks, their spins, their kicks. 20 minutes. They
wonder if they have what it takes to take down
the team that just nailed their performance, and
hope that they can just stay in sync in front of
the judges. They arrive at the final mat, and run
through their dance routine one last time. It’s
their first practice since they arrived in Orlando. 10 minutes. The nerves are really kicking in
now. Are they too young? Half of this team had
never even competed at the varsity level.
Now it’s time. It’s just them on one of the
grandest stages any of them have seen, The Hard
Rock Live. Moments before the music starts, a
huddle gathers in the middle of the stage.
“1...2...3...BEST FRIENDS!”
The soft beat of Florence + the Machine’s
“Cosmic Love” sets in, and 34 feet take their first
step in unison. The dancers are finally at ease.
***
Over spring break, the Lancer Dancer drill
team made the trip down to Orlando where
they took part in Nationals. After not making it
to the competition last year, the team returned
to the competition, where past teams have had
huge performances. This year’s team is one of
the youngest in recent years, with eight sophomores. But despite their youth, veteran dancers
like junior Liz Rodgers felt like the team still had
a ton of skill even with their lack of experience.
“I personally thought we had a very talented
squad,” Rodgers said. “And even from the beginning of the year we knew we had a really good

chance of going to nationals.”
The team not only works on their performances during class every Monday, Wednesday
and Friday, but they often come in at seven before school and stay after school. During school
they often practice until the final bell.
“We have to get called in late a lot because of
drill team,” Rodgers said.
The team also attended a camp very early
on in the season, that was essential for making
the cut at Nationals. Kristin Fry, the sponsor for
the girls, knew that she had a very young and
talented group, but learned at the camp how
dedicated the dancers were.
“The girls have an amazing work ethic,” Fry
said. “Camp is four days long and they danced
for almost 12 hours every single day. I was very
proud of them and the effort they put into their
work.”
The senior leaders felt that it was their job to
help encourage this strong work ethic and push
their talent to the max. Senior Emily Welter
knew that this group had a lot of potential and
she didn’t want any of it to go to waste.
“Our choreographer called us ‘The Dream
Team’ and I felt we had a really strong chance of
going to Nationals,” Welter said. “I knew that it
was my last year, and I wanted all of us to leave
it all out there this season.”
Once the team recieved the news they were
going to Orlando they began “cleaning the
dance”, where they make sure every single dancer is in sync, even with the tiniest details such as
head placement. They also try to find the team’s
greatest strengths so now what events to compete in Nationals.
***
Once the girls arrived in Orlando over Spring
Break, they were not allowed to practice at all.
Along with close to 18 other teams in their large
division, the girls sat through a long morning of
watching other squads bounding and dancing

across the huge stage. After the performances
ended, their scores flashed on a huge screen
over the stage.
“It was really intimidating,” Rodgers said. “It
made us constantly wonder if we were better or
worse than the team that just performed. The
big screen that flashed the scores didn’t make
things better.”
But the most intense moment of each performance was when the judges who sat in the back
of the auditorium, where they could see each
and every flaw. Even Welter, who had already
been to Nationals during her sophomore year,
found the environment to be rattling.
“Watching the other girls you get a blend
of being excited for everyone and being really
scared at the same time,” Welter said. “The judges aren’t front and center either. With them way
in the back, you know that they can catch every
mistake, because they have a really broad view
of the choreography.”
***
As the lyrics “No dawn. No day. I’m always in
this twilight” blast through the crowd, the Lancers now spin, twirl, and leap gracefully as one
group. As the dance progresses, the group splits
and runs through smaller routines. They are no
longer worried about the crowd, the judges, or
the score. They are flowing to the music.
“My favorite parts were the few parts where
the whole team was unified doing simple choreography,” Welter said. “I also liked when the
music [got] really climatic and there was a lot
of emotion.”
As the music dies down, thunderous applause fills the air. The girls glance at each
other, smiling gleefully. The score flashes on the
screen, and the girls breath a sigh a relief.
9.1 out of 10. Fifth in the competition. Their
12-hour practice sessions and year of prep had
finally paid off with that final dance.

WHERE
Orlando, Florida

While in Florida, the
team visited Universal
Studios to see Islands
of Adventure and The
Wizarding World of
Harry Potter.

WHAT THEY
PERFORMED
“My favorite [routine] was the
jazz routine to the song ‘Cosmic
Love.’ There was just more emotion. It was kind of telling a story
to the song.”

- Junior Liz Rodgers

HOW
THEY DID
The Lancer Dancers
placed fifth in jazz
dance category, and
placed 13th in hip
hop .

28

SPORTS
04-04-11

THE DRIVE

TO

DIVE

Accomplished freshman diver trains to make Olympics
AnnaMarken

The first time freshman Ellie Smart competed in a dive
meet, she was only five-years-old.
For many years however, diving was not her main sport.
Ellie was a gymnast until she tore all of the ligaments in her
ankles over the course of her gymnastics career, a common
injury for the sport. She had to leave school at 1:40 p.m. everyday for practice, and when she started missing out on social
events, she decided to quit.
“I didn’t love [gymnastics] like I used to, and it wasn’t worth
it anymore,” Ellie said
After quitting gymnastics, Ellie decided to dive competitively. The decision to dive was a natural transition for Ellie
-- she had been diving with the Carriage Club every summer
for eight years. She joined the Jayhawk Dive Club in 2009. Eric
Elliot, the owner and head coach of the club, had seen Ellie
dive in country club meets and expressed interest in her. Ellie
practices with her team five or six nights a week for two hours
in KU’s Robinson Hall. Robbie Smart, Ellie’s father, said that
the amount of time it takes to compete at Ellie’s level has been
the hardest part about the experience.
“It takes a lot of time and practice to get to where she’s at,
but it pays off in the end,” Robbie said. “She puts in so much
time and has improved so much. It’s great to see.”
Five or six days a week, Ellie drives to Lawrence for practice. For the first 30 minutes, Ellie does dry land training on
a trampoline. While on the trampoline, she is secured by
a belt which allows her to practice the dives and technique
before getting into the pool. For the rest of the practice, Ellie

EdenSchoofs

dives constantly. On weekends, Ellie travels to different cities
around the country to compete in United States regional diving meets with her club. The meets are the way divers qualify
for Olympics and USA Dive Nationals.
“It’s really competitive and I compete with kids from all
over the country to get to Nationals,” Ellie said.
Ellie has made it to Nationals the past two years and placed
second on tower -- a platform that ranges from five to ten meters high, last year, her biggest achievement in diving. This
year, Ellie moved out of the Under-14 group and into the Under-16 group, where she will one of the youngest competitors.
The jump will give her more competition. Despite this move,
she still believes she has a good chance at making Nationals.
According to Ellie, the reason for her success is that she gets
to control how she does and does not have to rely on others.
“I control how hard I work and what I get out of it,” Ellie
said.
Tim Davidson, who has been coaching Ellie for a year and
a half at the Jayhawk Dive Club, said that Ellie works her hardest every day and is very coachable.
“She works hard every day for both coaches,” Davidson
said. “She listens and is open to doing whatever she needs to
get better.”
Davidson believes that if Ellie continues on the path that
she is on, she has a great chance of making the 2016 Olympics
in Rio de Janeiro. Ellie has trained in Indianapolis with the national training center, which is where the top eight divers in
the nation live and train. The coaches told her that she had

DISSECTING A DIVE
1 Smart starts by

setting up her
dive tall. She
rocks the board
to get spring for
the dive.

great potential.
“I felt amazing when they told me that,” Ellie said. “Sometimes I don’t get the outcome I want, but when someone like
that tells you that you have potential, you know all the hard
work is paying off.”
Ellie began diving for East in March, and dive coach Shelly
King already sees great talent and potential. King has seen
Ellie diving for many years at country club meets, but never
knew her well. King’s first impression of Ellie was that she
was very focused, interested in being part of the team and enthusiastic about the sport.
“She has an impeccable work ethic for someone her age,”
King said. “Every day when she comes in she’s focused and
knows what she needs to work on and do.”
Ellie said that the hardest thing about diving at such a high
level is that everyone develops at a different stage. Most divers
hit their peak in the 20s, not in high school.
“It’s a really slow process,” Ellie said. “There are so many
basic things you have to achieve before you can move on. It’s
hard to know that you’ll get better eventually.”
Ellie plans to dive in college and has been talked to by
coaches from Purdue, Minnesota and Duke. Her dream is to
dive for Stanford. Beyond swimming in college, one of Ellie’s
dreams is to make it to the Rio Olympics.
“If I don’t reach that because it’s really hard,” Ellie said,
“I definitely want to make the US National team and get to
travel around the world to dive for them.”

Breaking down Ellie’s favorite dive—a back 1.5 with a 2.5 twist

her dive
2 With
properly set,

Smart begins
her flip. While
flipping, she
uses her arms
and core to
twist 2.5 times.

she
3 Once
finishes her

twists and flips,
Smart lines up
her dive straight
into the water to
finish the dive.

SPORTS

issue 13

PINNINGitDOWN
AnneWillman

Head wrestling coach Chip Ufford reiterated to his team
after every practice to write down their weaknesses that
needed to be worked on. This season, each wrestler evaluated
themselves regarding the areas that required more improvement. Junior Blaine Hill wanted a way to keep organized.
Blaine took his words seriously, recording his information,
if it was how he did on the mat that day or the things that
he needed to work on. Kept inside his journal is his complete
guide to wrestling—improvements and statistics. Inside he
can see what he did in the each previous practice and what he
is going to do to achieve his goals.
This past season was different for the wrestling team, they
narrowed the areas that needed focus and they made progress. With the help of a combination consisting of young and
progressing talent, the team was able to place sixth in state
and take home five individual medalists: senior David Hill,
juniors Blake Hill, Blaine Hill, and Ben Randolph and sophomore Chipper Jorns. This season made it one of the most successful seasons is Shawnee Mission East history, giving hope
to the team for the upcoming years.
The varsity team this year consisted of two freshmen, one
sophomore, four juniors and two seniors. As each athlete’s
skill progressed through year, the following years look nothing short of positive. According to Blaine next season looks to
be more promising.
“Our goal is to win state next year,” Blaine said. “I know
that’s a possible goal and as hard as we work is how well we’ll

29

Wrestling team evaluates areas for improvement and has
high expectations for next season

do.”
Over the course of the season, the team put more work
into practicing than in the past. The team met for practices
more often on Saturdays than in previous years, working in
the weight room frequently and spending more time on the
mats.
“The key to getting better for next year is experience and
getting more mat time,” Blaine said.
To get ready for next season, Ufford has a plan. Ufford
assures that returning wrestlers sign up for a post-season
evaluation. In the evaluation, Ufford talks one-on-one about
strengths and weaknesses that need to be addressed accordingly.
“We look at all aspects of last season, if it is the number
of take-downs, pins or escapes, that’s what we want to study,”
Ufford said.
Ufford said that instilling more experience earlier will be
beneficial to them in the upcoming season. The wrestling
team holds a summer camp for up and coming wrestlers in
the program as well as a team camp. All of the freshmen on
varsity this season with the exception of one, attended camps
through East growing up that prepared them for competing
on the varsity level. During the summer, the team also focuses on the areas determined by Ufford in the previous evaluation. The former wrestlers also give their time and play a part
in helping the young wrestlers.
“Open mat occurs every Wednesday of the summer and

former wrestlers run them,” Ufford said.
The wrestling staff has scouted out different ways to reach
the goal of improving their state standing from sixth to the
top three.
Although practicing in the summer will boost skill levels,
Ufford feels that the weight training during the school year is
helpful for preparing for the season. Athletic weights classes
have been available and the extra training will give the wrestlers more time to taper their skills.
Wrestling requires the time to improve, but experience is
not the only focus entirely.
“We have to eat right, work hard and support each other
in order to get better,” freshman Grant Hollsingsworth said.
The wrestlers evaluate one another at practice, testing
their weaknesses and to ultimately focus on how to get ready
for tournaments. The diet for the team is very precise, making
sure that what one eats will not affect weight gain or weight
class for competition.
Ufford said that next year, the team will have a great senior
class, returning four wrestlers that went to state this season
along with some young talent. The team will focus on those
returning, but according the Ufford, it is also important to
build up the team for upcoming years.
“I tell the seniors every year to leave the program better
than when they found it and so far every senior has done just
that,” Ufford said.

6937 Tomahawk Rd. In the Prairie Village Shops
384-2445 cjackscafe.com

Bring in THIS COUPON for a FREE COOKIE
with the purchase of a sandwich, salad, wrap, or panini.
one coupon per customer, per visit. Not good with any other offer.

G
N
I
D
L
I
U
B a state contender
100 METER

Despite graduating fourth and sixth place state
placers Chris Clarke and Joe Turner from last
year’s team, the Lancers will still have a deep
core of sprinters. This list is headlined by senior
Quan Brunt and sophomore Troy Wilkins. With a
time-trial time of 11.06, Brunt already has a time
that could place him at state. With a time of 11.11,
Wilkins is right behind him.

C. WILKINS

Coming back from a nagging injury, senior Connor Wilkins may be the difference for this Lancer
team. Although he has been plagued by injuries,
the TCU commit has the talent to place in the top
half at state in multiple events as well as put a couple relays over the top.

SPORTS
issue 13

The boys’ track and field team
looks to have the perfect mix to
place well at state

31

week one REVIEW

Baseball against MIll Valley, Olathe
South, SMNW

CorbinBarnds

110 HURDLES

In their first game, the Lancers lost to Mill Valley 6-4.
Then they beat Olathe South 4-2 and SMNW 6-4.

Sophomore David Sosna leads the hurdlers
and will have the chance to place at state. At
time trials, Sosna finished two seconds ahead
of the rest of the pack with a time of 16.02; that
time would have been good to get him 10th after
prelims, and three tenths off of placing at state.
AndreaZecy

400 METER

Girls Soccer against Olathe North

In their first game they beat Olathe North 4-0. Freshman
Addison Steiner and sophomore Caroline Dodd each
scored two goals.

In the 400 meter dash, sophomore Troy Wilkins
will be the Lancers’ fastest by a couple of seconds.
With a time trial time of 51.28, Wilkins time is only
.4 seconds off the time that got eighth last year, a
number he can surpass by the state championship
meet in early summer.

AbbyJones

FIELD EVENTS

The Lancers’ strongest competitor could be in the
field events. Senior Brian Williamson placed seventh
at state last season in the discus behind a senior so he
looks to be a state champion this year. To help improve
his chances, head coach David Pennington claims
Williamson has added another foot or two to his distance. Due to the top four placers graduating, senior
Kyle Engelken in the pole vault also

looks
poised
to be a state champion this year after
he placed fifth at
state last season. A
couple other names
to look out for in the
field
events are Grant Ellis in the long jump, Alec Bartholomew (above) in the high jump and Alex Rorie in
the javelin.

“

Any team looking to place at
state has to have solid finishes
We should definitely
in the relays: the 4x100, 4x400
be able to finish in the
and 4x800 relays define who
top three [at state].
the best teams are—not just the
Coach David Pennington
best individuals. This year has three solid teams who can easily make
it past regionals and into the state semi-final. The 4x100, which only returns senior Andrew Goble,
set the school record last year (42.16), but placed third in an unusually tough final. This year, they
should at least go under 43 seconds and place top three at State. The 4x400, who returns juniors
Joe Lewis, Tucker Styrkowicz, Jack Fay and sophomore Troy Wilkins, will be one of the top teams at
State—expect a top two finish. Finally, the 4x800, which returns juniors Evan Nichols, Adam Simmons (far above) and sophomore Carter Olander, is ready to provide crucial points at state; the
2008 team placed second overall in part due to the 4x800 not scoring points at the state meet. If
the relays start to hit their goal times, expect to see a state title this spring.

S
Y
A
L
E
R
Relays

”

Lacrosse against Blue Valley North, St.
Thomas Aquinas, Eureka

In their first game they beat Blue Valley North 12-6. East
overcame an early deficit to defeat St. Thomas Aquinas
13-4. In their most recent game, East lost to Eureka 8-3.
Thus far, Thomas Loudon leads the team with five goals.

Faerber an Illini

After an impressive 650 yard
season, junior WR Elliot Faerber received an offer from
Illinois and committed. Faerber
was the first 2012 Sunflower
League recruit to commit to a
Division 1 program.

ClaireWahrer

32

PHOTO ESSAY
04-04-11

The East Robotics team solves problems together at the Greater Kansas City Regional Robotics competition.
Sophomore William Barbour, above left,
tweaks parts of the mini-bot prior
to competing. Part of this year’s
competition was to have a miniature
robot shoot out of the full-size one and
climb a pole in the arena.
GrantHeinlein
Robotics sponsor Jason Smith, above
middle, carefully observes the team as
they prepare to fix the problems they
encountered in the previous round. “The
regional event is a six week preparation
process,” Smith said. “[The task] may
seem simple, but it takes a lot of work
considering the short amount of time.”
GrantHeinlein
Looking at the clock, junior
Carter Stolberg, above right, checks
the amount of time remaining in the
competition as senior Tyler Cecil
attempts to control the robot.
GrantHeinlein
Pondering the situation, senior
Tyler Cecil, right, frustratedly tries
to figure out how to fix the robot. “It
was amazing to see just how quickly
everybody on the team was able to react
to everything that happened,” Cecil said.
“Normally you would have to tell them
what broke and how to fix it.”
GrantHeinlein
Sophomore Nate Anderson and senior
James Harbison, far left, carefully attempt
to complete the construction of the mini-bot
in time for the upcoming competition.
DanStewart
Senior Emma Schulte, left, goes over the
strategy for the next round. “When [the
team] gets assigned a match, we need
to go seek the other teams and see what
their robots do,” Schulte said. “You have
to coordinate a strategy and see what we
would be going up against.”
DanStewart